The Internet Imagination Engine.
Elizabeth Williams Bushey, creator of
InklessTales.com
She writes, illustrates, composes music for, and programs nearly everything you see on Inkless Tales.
Blame her.
To learn more about InklessTales.com, visit the "About" page.
Hi. I'm Elizabeth, and I make InklessTales.com. Yep. All of it. Just me. See? You CAN do anything.
When I first wrote this editor's page, InklessTales.com was just starting up, and it was all about reading, writing and drawing.
Now it's also about math, music and science, with the Mathematical Mother Goose, What's My Number, Inkless Tunes, and we've launched videos, movies and plain text with illustrations of fun, easy do-at-home science experiments for kids to keep on learning all year.
The Ask Elizabeth column is going strong, with kids all over the world asking the most intriguing questions - giving me the enormous pleasure of putting my journalist hat back on.
I've interviewed the Starburst ® company to find out why one red candy is chewier than the other, and gone straight to the top of the Girl Scouts of the USA headquarters in New York City to talk with their head people when a Girl Scout in Corpus Christi, TX, was worried about bullying going on in her troop. (The Girl Scouts reacted quickly and appropriately.)
I got a huge personal thrill creating a recent video, How Birds Fly*, when I got to interview world-famous ornithologist Dr. Heinz Meng. He happens to live near my home in New York (although I'm presently located in California) - and my mother, who at one time was a biologist herself, was a student of his.
I'd heard his name over and over again - it was as exciting for me to talk to him as it would be for some of my readers to talk to Hannah Montana.
InklessTales.com is - and always has been - about presenting kids with fun stuff that teaches them. Learning doesn't have to be boring. Absolutely 
everything on InklessTales.com has some educational purpose, but it's also rigorously tested - I'm also a human-computer usability expert - by actual children, to ensure that the activities are fun, too.
You should see us: I sit, quietly watching heartless kids navigate the pages or the games I've built, and cringe as they get confused or bored. If they get stuck, they'll turn to me, the grownup, and ask: "What do I do next?"
Knowing I won't be there at every corner of the globe, sitting wtih every visitor (according to Google Analytics, there is literally no place on earth that does not visit InklessTales.com), I can only answer: "What do you THINK you should do?"
I can do a lot: I can draw, paint, write, play music, sing, and work a computer nearly to the ground.
Why? Not because I'm amazingly talented, although many people say I am. I give my mother most of the credit. The rest of the credit goes to my high school English teacher, Karen DeCrosta.
Ms. DeCrosta was the first person who told me I was a writer. She wasn't afraid to tell me when my work wasn't up to her standards, either; she didn't let me become a praise junkie. She worked me hard, and made me better. But she took me seriously, showed me where I went wrong - and where I could go right, if I wanted to work hard - and was the kind of teacher who could really motivate a teenager. I'll never, ever forget her.
From earliest childhood, Mom gave me the belief in myself. If I wanted to try something - absolutely anything - she let me give it a whack.
"I want to sew clothes for my doll," I'd say, and she'd hand over needle and thread. I was five. Build a clubhouse? Here's a hammer and some nails. I was seven.
My efforts were far short of perfect, but her response was always: "You only fail when you stop trying. Otherwise, you're just ruling out what doesn't work."
(Of course, she came from a medical family, which might have had something to do with it - but it's still a good working philosophy.)
People are amazed one woman, alone, built this huge, high-traffic, award-winning web site, that's linked to thousands of schools, libraries and museums around the world, that reaches the entire world.
Please don't be amazed. I am not amazing. I am simply a lucky person who grew up around people who knew that if you tell a child she can do anything... she will.
I want InklessTales.com to do the same thing for every child that visits.
Learn, play. Write, draw, explore and more.
Thanks for visiting, and come back again soon. Write me if you like. You can also visit my personal web site at www.elizabethbushey.com.
*How Birds Fly is also now available for viewing on YouTube.
All material © Elizabeth Bushey, except where indicated.
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Elizabeth Williams Bushey in concert.
Elizabeth Bushey has been a singer, a prepress supervisor, a waitress, a paste-up artist, a hotel chambermaid, a poet, a journalist, an illustrator, a college teacher, a graphic designer, a Web site strategist and most of all, a Mom. She is a lifelong passionate lover of children's literature.
She likes science, math AND reading. And finger painting. Don't forget finger painting.
She is a former member of the Board of the Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, and is an associate member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
She is a very busy person. There's even a lot of stuff she left out here.
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Check out the Inkless Tales Podcast for Kids at http://inklesstales.wordpress.com.
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