I grew up in California: Berkeley (hiking the hills with my father, skating at Iceland) and Long Beach (wading the tide-pools with my friend Sandy, haunting the excellent public library). I went to UCBerkeley for undergraduate and library school, and took dance for fun. I went back to school at Laney (Oakland) in the mid-eighties for music courses after I'd been writing songs for a while and needed some new chops.

I've been a social worker (briefly and accidentally) and a children's librarian. I'm now a songwriter and storyteller and am writing a biography of my mother. For several years I blogged about writing the book and about other things I was doing at http://web.mac.com/nancyschimmel

I've written a book about storytelling (Just Enough to Make a Story) and, with Fran Avni, a song and activity book to go with our CD "I'm All Ears: Sing into Reading" to help tune children's ears to the sounds that will help them learn to read. With Candy Forest I've done two Cds: "Sun, Sun Shine: Songs for Curious Children" and "Speeney, Spawney, Go to the Moon: Hushabyes for All Ages." Available at http://www.sisterschoice.com

How did you get to where you are now?

Not by charting a course, that's for sure. I just followed what interested me or what was available at the time. 

How do you see yourself differently now than you did 10 years ago?

Sexier.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

No idea. I hope I'm finished with the biography and the book tour and have a stack of glowing reviews. I hope I'm still singing, but don't have to sing against the war in Afghanistan any more, because it will be over, or against illegal foreclosures, because they will have stopped.

My mother, songwriter-activist Malvina Reynolds

My father, William Reynolds, carpenter, organizer, storyteller

My daughter, computer animator and website designer Nancy Ibsen

All my good schoolteachers: Mrs. Carney, Mrs. Emery, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Cornelius, Mr. D'Amato

The good writers of my childhood whose influence I didn't notice at the time: William Pene du Bois, Lewis Carroll, Arthur Ransome, A. A. Milne

Storytellers Connie Regan Blake and Barbara Freeman, who inspired me to quit the library and go on the road.

All the anonymous singers and tellers who passed the songs and stories down