random facts about me

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME
~ I’m an only child.
But I have two first cousins and two second cousins (or maybe they’re first cousins once
removed). I consider them honorary siblings.
~ I once told my cousins I should have my way because somebody had to be the princess.
They remind me of this regularly.
~ I’ve lived in seven different states and one foreign country.
The states are: Texas, New York, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Mexico.
The foreign country is Scotland, where I spent a year studying at the Edinburgh College of Art.
~ I’ve visited every state in the US except West Virginia.
Need to work on that.
~ I’ve visited 37 different countries.
They are: Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Brazil, Jamaica, England, Scotland, Ireland,
France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece,
Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, Yugoslavia, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Tanzania,
Zimbabwe, Botswana, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Bhutan is next.
~ I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Contrary to most people’s perceptions, Santa Fe is not a flat desert full of tumbleweeds. It’s in
the southern Rocky Mountains and is higher than Denver, CO. We live at 8,000 feet, we’re
surrounded by pine trees, and there’s a ski basin 11 miles up the road from our house. Santa Fe
is the oldest state capital and the second oldest town in the US, after St. Augustine, FL.
~ I had a goldfish named Fishy Wiggle-Tail. Later I got a white toy poodle and, being a
show-off, named him Puccini Barculus Ferocious Atrocious Gregarious Stanley the First.
(We called him Poochie.)
I don’t have pets anymore because we travel too much to look after them.
~ I was a failure at ballet.
I took ballet classes at the YMCA. Mostly I just wanted to wear a tutu. But it didn’t work out.
The teacher called my mother and said, “Diane is frustrated. Maybe she’d be happier in art.”
The teacher was right. I was.
~ I studied piano, violin, and guitar. I played the bongo drums during my beatnik days.
I wasn’t particularly good at any of them. (The long hair in the picture is fake, by the way.)
~ I took ice skating lessons at Rockefeller Center.
I was actually pretty successful at that. Also, mother had a black velvet coat made for me to
wear while skating. It came with an ermine muff. (After all, somebody has to be the princess.)
~ My mother, Fay Stanley, was a published writer.
Her first book was a mystery, Murder Leaves a Ring. It was published in 1950 and won an award.
Later she wrote another mystery called Portrait in Jigsaw. Shortly before she died, she and I did
a book together, a picture book biography of Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii, called The Last Princess.
She wrote it and I illustrated it.
~ My father, Burt Stanley, was a navy pilot during World War II. He was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross.
He flew bombers off aircraft carriers in the Pacific and was shot down at sea, but was rescued.
He was in Butch O’Hare’s squadron and his picture is in a display at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
~ When I was little I liked to draw pictures and make up stories.
(I still do.)
On the left is Girl with Messy Hair. On the right is my first illustrated book, This is a House; This is
the House on Fire.
~ I once wrote a play in which all the characters were dead by the end.
I still have it. It’s perfectly dreadful (but also hilarious).
~ I wrote a lot of poetry too.
I’m not sure how good my poems were, but they scanned perfectly. Also, even back then, I did a
lot of self-editing, always trying to make my work better. It was a good habit, started young.
~ When I was in middle school I attempted to write a novel set in the French Revolution.
I had just been given my first typewriter. And that’s all you need to become a novelist—right? I
got off to a great start with a dramatic scene in a dungeon. Then my character escaped and I was
confronted with the discouraging fact that I knew absolutely nothing about the French
Revolution.
~ I was about six when we got our first TV. Hardly anybody had them back then, and
only in the big cities (we lived in New York).
It was very small, black and white, and there were just three stations. Programs were only
broadcast in the late afternoon and at night, and a modern kid would probably find them all
hideously boring. My favorite show was Howdy Doody.
~ I once appeared in the “Peanut Gallery” on the Howdy Doody Show, which was
broadcast from New York.
My cousin Jim did, too.
~ I saw Mary Martin play Peter Pan on Broadway.
Seven times. After a while my mother got so sick of the play that she asked her friends to take
me. I wonder why she didn’t just say “no.”
~ When I was in high school, I wanted to be an actress.
I played Puck in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at Balboa Park in San Diego when I was
thirteen. I studied Shakespeare and classic plays. I was a National Thespian and president of my
high school drama club.
~ I also worked on the high school newspaper.
I was sent to interview Troy Donahue, but the studio sent Sal Mineo instead. Disappointed! You
will never have heard of either one, but they were famous at the time.
~ My husband, Peter Vennema, is a fanatical birdwatcher. (Fanatical birdwatchers call
themselves “birders.”)
He’s also an avid reader, traveler, sports fan, sailor, photographer, news follower, map reader,
number cruncher, and dishwasher.
~ I have three children.
Two girls and one boy; a redhead, a brunette, and a blonde.
~ I’ve always worked at home.
When we lived in Houston, I didn’t have a real office, so my desk kept migrating. By the time we
moved to New Mexico, I’d worked in every room in the house except the kitchen, hallways, or
bathrooms. In total, I’ve had ten different work spaces.
Sometimes it was pretty chaotic.
~ My children are all grown up now. I am very proud of them.
Catherine is an assistant professor of art history at the University of New Mexico. She is married
to a fellow professor, Daniel, and (see below for what came next). Tamara is a lawyer; she works
in California as a public defender. John lives in New York and works in production accounting for
film and television.
~ I have one grandchild. Her name is Clementine.
What can I say? She’s perfect.
~ Before becoming an author, I worked as a medical illustrator.
Also a Christmas package wrapper at a department store; a clean-up person at a hair salon; an ad
writer for a local radio station; a graphic designer; and an art director at a publishing house.
~ I took my first ski lesson at the ripe old age of—
—never mind. Let’s just say I was a really late starter. The class I took was called a “never-ever”
class (for people who’d never ever skied before). We started with “this is how you put on your
skis.” To my surprise, I loved it and have worked hard to become a better skier. Now it’s one of
my favorite things to do. I ski black slopes, but don’t much care for moguls.
~ My other favorite thing to do is hiking.
I hike every Wednesday with an amazing group of friends. We call ourselves The Hiking Honeys
(or alternately, The Walkie-Talkies). Among other things, we have climbed Santa Fe Baldy and
Mount Wheeler, the tallest peak in New Mexico.
Here are three of us on Hamilton Mesa in the Pecos Wilderness.
~ There’s a lot of wildlife in our neighborhood.
Black bears (which come in various colors, like this one), coyotes, deer, bobcats, raccoons,
skunks, foxes, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, and lots of birds, especially ravens and
hummingbirds.
We take our bird feeders in at night so as not to entice the bears.
We had to glue plastic snakes to the parapet of our roof to scare away the ravens (they kept
pecking at our insulation to bury their latest treasures). It worked.
~ I’ve been a reader all my life. I could never have become a writer if I hadn’t first
been a reader. It’s how I learned what good writing sounds like.
~ I love my job and I love my life. I feel very, very lucky.