I didn’t realize my mistake until I was picking out cover images for my books. Every book—every single book—contained a parrot. A lively, personable, trouble-making parrot. I was floored. I’d written and edited those stories over the last 18 years, and had only recently decided to publish them as ebooks. At no point had I made a conscious decision to let parrots steal the show in every book. Yet there they were, all vying to be part of the cover designs.

     So how did I become secretly (and quite cluelessly) obsessed with parrots? Thinking back, it happened over a two-year period in the mid-80s. I was living in an apartment that housed two Amazon parrots, and I was working in a wild bird care center Continue reading →