My name is Jill Ballou, former preschool teacher, retired pediatric nurse, and new author of children's stories. Since studying children's literature as part of the early childhood curriculum at the University of Kansas I've always delighted in it. I read daily to my preschoolers and to my own children as long they would let me. My goal after retirement was to pursue writing for young children, but that was the easy part. I soon realized that I would have to learn about self publishing and marketing of my books, a much harder endeavor.

So now, I publish and market as Bicycle Bell Books and have three available books. It's no surprise that marketing is the biggest challenge for me because it is so far removed from what I know and was trained to do, which is taking care of sick kids. But, I'm coming along slowly, and committed to getting my stories out there. They are designed to encourage children to laugh, learn, think, and wonder. Most of all, I want children to feel loved and important, because they are.