Six teachers who are also authors or illustrators, all with a wide range of teaching experience, are interviewed here by Carol-Ann Hoyte. Richard Scarsbrook currently teaches seventh-grade geography. During his 15-year career, he has instructed a range of subjects including English, History, Drama, Art, Math and Science. With the exception of a couple of years spent teaching fifth and sixth graders early in his career, he's taught at the intermediate level.

Last June, Sean Cassidy retired after 35 years of teaching. He taught all subjects in Grades 7 and 8 for nine years; secondary school English, Geography, Math, and Science for 8 years; and Art, Illustration, Media at the secondary school level for the last 18 years of his career.

After 24 years of teaching, Nancy Hundal is "still at it!" For most of her career, she has been a teacher-librarian at a Kindergarten to Grade 7 school. When she started her career, she taught students in Grades 1 through 4.

It was 1972 when Kristin Butcher started teaching. She has taught seventh-grade girls' physical education which "was a hoot!" In 1980, after five years of child-rearing and a year of substitute teaching, she secured a job teaching junior high in a school system from which she retired from 1996. She spent most of her career teaching English/Language Arts, Social Studies, Art, and Math to students in Grades 5 through 10.

It's been more than 25 years since Dave Glaze started teaching. He's taught all elementary grades, except Kindergarten and Grade 8. He currently works half-time as a teacher-librarian at a Saskatoon elementary school.

Don Aker has taught English Language Arts to students in Grades 8 through 12; Social Studies to Grades 7, 8, and 10; and Math to eighth and ninth graders. Last year marked his twenty-eighth year of teaching. This year, he has been the Literacy Teacher Mentor for Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley Regional School Board.

When did you start writing in your teaching career? Or, if you are retired, did you start writing when you stopped teaching?

Richard Scarsbrook: I have been writing for my entire teaching career. I started writing stories with the intention of getting them published the year I attended the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. A couple of the stories I wrote back then did in fact later get pubished in magazines, and I eventually worked them into chapters in my first young adult novel, Cheeseburger Subversive.

Sean Cassidy: I started writing in 1995, about 11 years before I retired from teaching. Our home has always been filled with books. My daughter was born in 1990. I often made up stories and drew characters for her. In 1995, I decided to try doing it professionally.

Nancy Hundal: I took a correspondence course in writing for children when I first started teaching, and had my first book published after I had been teaching for about six years.

Kristen Butcher: My first published book was contracted in 1995. It began as a...