She grew up in Highland Park, Illinois, where her father practiced medicine and her mother, an artist, taught art.
After college and while raising three children, Brenda found being around kids and books reignited her old writing fantasy.
She started out writing stories that were accepted by Ladybug magazine and several picture book manuscripts that collected 130 rejection letters over the course of three years.
Julia's Kitchen is about eleven-year-old Cara Segal, who loses her mother and sister in a fire while spending the night at a friend's house.
The book deals with Cara's struggles with her grief, her questions about God and Judaism, and how she copes with her father's withdrawal following the fire.