I was born in Wisconsin too long ago for anyone to remember and named Billie after my dad, William Pendry Bidelman as my parents already had two daughters and there were no sons in sight. By the time I remembered

much of anything I was living atop Mt. Hamilton in California, home of James Lick Observatory.  My father was

an astrophysicist and the 120 inch telescope next door was his workplace. My mother was a teacher, an avid reader, and a force of nature.

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I attended a one-room school with fourteen students which is where I mostly was left to my own devices and grew

to believe I could do most anything. My three sisters and I had the run of the mountain--with only black widow spiders rattlesnakes, and the occasional mountain lion to fear. 

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When I was ten, we moved to San Jose where I made same-age friends for the first time and fell in love

in suburbia and all it had to offer-- roller skating, swimming and tennis. We sold Kool-aid popsicles all summer and I wrote silly stories and illustrated them, cutting out skinny strips of typewriter print and pasting the words onto pages with my drawings. I was always frustrated that the finished product didn't look quite like a real book.

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When I was thirteen, my father took a job in Ann Abor and we girls, despite our mother's patient encouragement, cried all the way across the country. This cruel blow was accompanied, in my case, by the advent of adolescence. When my body and brain settled down and adjusted to teenage and the endless snows of a Michigan winter, life improved.

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High school and college followed and were successfully completed. In search of something, I moved to Nashville. Teaching and married life ensued. My husband, Joe, and I had our first son, Alex, while in Nashville. I began writing during the baby's naps and published an article about teaching creative writing in Learning Magazine.

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Another mountain loomed and, with another baby on the way, we moved to Sewanee, Tennessee.  Jonathan was born on a spectacular Fall day and Alex became well acquainted with raccoons and went to sleep each night to the hooting of nearby owls. For me, the mountain provided two years of forced isolation that did not suit me--at least that's how I felt at the time. Despite a new baby and a two-year-old in the house, I was determined to write and produced the first draft of a novel about a young girl growing up in a Japanese internment camp. 

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A move in 1982 brought us back to civilization in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a small town near Nashville. The first novel had some nibbles, but never a full bite. After being on the list for publication in 1986, the project was literally and figuratively shelved. By then my daughter, Beth, had joined the ranks.

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Frustrated with my writing, I re-entered the field of Education. In 1986, after deciding Murfreesboro could use more cultural opportunities for children, I began planning a children's museum on a yellow legal pad. A public meeting was held, and after a grass-roots campaign, a 4500-square-foot building was purchased and the Discovery House opened as a non-profit in 1987. I was hired as Executive Director of the fledgling organization. We logged over 11,000 visitors that first year--and on a steep learning curve-- I was able to get the hang of fundraising, management, marketing, exhibit development, programming and grassroots finagling. 

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In 1996, planning began for a move and an expansion, and in 2001, the 30,000-square-foot Discovery Center reopened on 20 acres of wetlands. Within two years, we received a major expansion grant. I served as CEO for many years, finally retiring in 2012 to do what I'd always wanted to do -- write.

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The Funny Times published Redeem for a Couples Massage in October of 2015, followed by numerous other essays. 

Currently, two novels are in the works, both for Middle Grade. I review all sorts of books for BookPage and write articles on assignment for various publications.  

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My husband and I live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee with our orally-fixated dog, Mingus, and numerous backyard visitors-- snakes, opossums, turtles, and the occasional rogue chicken. My favorite day is spent with my children and grandchildren playing, swimming, cooking, and thinking about what I might write tomorrow. 

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