GOLDSMITH, Connie 1945-

PERSONAL: Born 1945, in Bloomington, IL; daughter of Ernest Lee and Alice (Cole) Wright; divorced; children: Michelle Beth. Education: Earned A.S., B.S., and M.P.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—Near Sacramento, CA. Agent— c/o Author Mail, Millbrook Press, Inc., 2 Old New Milford Rd., P.O. Box 335, Brookfield, CT 06804-0335. E-mail—goldwright@aol.com.

CAREER: Writer. Worked for twelve years as a hospital nurse and ten years for health maintenance organizations; Access Health/McKesson, Sacramento, CA, part-time telephone advice nurse.

MEMBER: Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (assistant regional advisor for North/Central California).

AWARDS, HONORS: First-place award in nature writing contest, Children's Writer, 1998, for "Two Bears and a Kid"; first-place award, Sacramento Public Library, 1999, for The Bull Dancer.

WRITINGS:

Lost in Death Valley: The True Story of Four Families in California's Gold Rush, Millbrook Press (Brookfield, CT), 2001.
Neurological Disorders, Blackbirch Press (San Diego, CA), 2001.

Author of a children's book review column for California Kids, 1998—. Contributor of about 150 articles, including "Two Bears and a Kid," to adult and children's magazines, including Boys' Life, Cricket, Guideposts for Kids, Guideposts for Teens, Highlights for Children, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Wild Outdoor World, Blue Ridge Country, and Current Health, and to nursing journals.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Emerging Infectious Diseases, a young adult nonfiction book, for Millbrook Press; The Bull Dancer and Water Witch (Ondine), young adult novels; a novel for middle-grade readers.

SIDELIGHTS: Connie Goldsmith told CA: "Like many writers, I was a good reader as a child. By the time I was ten, I'd pretty much finished the children's section of the library. My parents let me read anything I wanted, so I started in on the adult section. However, I never thought about writing myself. It seemed too hard, impossible to believe that I could ever see a book with my name on it.

"But it's never too late to start a new career. I should know. I didn't begin writing for publication until I was fifty years old! I drew on my education and training as a registered nurse and started out with articles for children's magazines about health topics. I wrote a lot of articles for nurses and other health-care professionals as well.

"It was a newspaper story that gave me the idea for my first book, Lost in Death Valley: The True Story of Four Families in California's Gold Rush. This story is as exciting as the Donner Party story, but not many people know about it. The four families and their children made it through incredible hardships as they trekked through Death Valley and across the Mojave Desert, trying to get to the California gold mines during the winter of 1849-1850.

"My second book, Neurological Disorders, is part of a series on the human brain. It came directly from my 'day job' of working as a neurological nurse specialist. My third book will be about emerging infectious diseases. SARS, West Nile Virus, human monkey pox, hantavirus—these diseases were unheard of a few years ago. Malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis are the biggest killers in the world, yet many Americans know little about them. I'm also working on two young adult novels and one for middle-grade students."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 2001, Linda Perkins, review of Lost in Death Valley: The True Story of Four Families in California's Gold Rush, p. 1459; October 15, 2001, Todd Morning, review of Neurological Disorders, p. 403.

School Library Journal, April, 2001, Steven Engelfried, review of Lost in Death Valley, p. 160; September, 2001, Martha Gordon, review of Neurological Disorders, p. 240.