About the Author

This is the author of The Majestic Crane: An African American Girl's Journey to Asian Culture, The Adventures of Gabe Series, The Adventures of Captain Remarkable, The Tales of Teacups, and The Doll at the Christmas Bazaar.

Her stories are based on experiences she has had raising her children Nathaniel, Misha and Gabriel who range in age of 22 to 5 years old.

Rochelle grew up as an only child of her mother, but both her parents have huge families based in Oklahoma and living as far as California to her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Her older children are form an earlier marriage to Michael Thomas. Together they enjoyed reading African stories to their children and exposing them to many cultures. As a couple Rochelle and Michael shared their home to over 1,000 Japanese students at Showa Boston, where she was a dorm mother. Their daughter was born while on campus and recently shared Wiggles Press Books with children in Accra Ghana.

 

He youngest child with her late husband, Richard F. Thorpe was the inspiration of the Adventures of Gabe Series, which includes Gabe and the Park & His Big Toy Box, Gabe and the Bike, and Gabe's Nantucket Adventure: Daffodils, Dogs, and Cars.  Rochelle and Richard met in 1979 while under grads at the University of Massachusetts, where she majored in Business Administration at the Isenberg School of Management, and minored in Chinese Language and Literature. Richard was a member of the School of Communications and active with Black Mass Communication Project(BMCP), WMUA, Drum and Numo News.

They were also members of the Committee for the Collegiate Education of Black and other Minority Students (CCEBMS) Students and enjoyed eating Yvonne's Cooking at New Africa House in the 1980's. Richard was a Campus DJ and although the two never dated as undergrad's he played the music Rochelle would dance to, and when she danced everyone noticed.

In 2003, Rochelle attended graduate school at Emerson College and during 2004 Richard assisted William Smith while he launched the Center for Diversity in the Media at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. Richard passed away of complications related to leukemia on January 27, 2006.

In 2005, Rochelle obtained a Master of Art degree from Emerson College, where she majored in Integrated Marketing Communications.

Rochelle currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her three children and is enjoying collaborating with other authors to publish their children's stories at Wiggles Press.