About

Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here. I want this to be a fun place for you to visit, where you can find great children’s books and ideas to inspire and showcase your child’s creativity. I’m an author and illustrator who graduated from FIT in Manhattan with a major in illustration. I believe books and art go together like the classic PB & J. I love both and couldn’t have one without the other. A jelly sandwich? No way. Blogging about books without including art? No, thanks. Wouldn’t taste right. So, here you can have it all. Enjoy.

While you are here, you can click the link and visit my author website francesjudge.com to learn more about my published books, stories, and poems. I’m in the process of editing my second novel, hopefully ready to be published this year. Any updates will appear in the newsletter with balloons. You can also check out my book Randi's Steps on Amazon.

Now that you know what’s happening here at Doodle Stories, I’ll share a bit about me. I grew up in the town of Mount Sinai, New York, on the north shore of Long Island with my wonderful parents, one sister, and cats. My dad is an amazing portrait artist, winning too many awards to count. His father was a writer who had a column in the local newspaper. I like to think I inherited their gifts or at least a portion. While I was in art school, I met my husband, a graduate from the School of Visual Arts. His mom was an artist too. We had five kids who I homeschooled for ten years and now are grown and pursuing artistic careers. I have written close to 250 short stories and poems, been published in magazines and anthologies, and self-published a middle-grade novel that was a contest finalist. My writing has earned some awards, but I don’t want to bore you with all that. When I’m not reading or writing, I love tennis, bike riding, and playing trivia games with my family at the dinner table. 

Thanks for visiting! Come back soon.

Frances Judge