About Me

 

 

 

 Books are mirrors; you only see in them what you already have inside you.

--Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I was born in southeastern Oklahoma and spent my early childhood between there and California, thanks to Route 66 and Greyhound buses.  My father and mother separated when I was eighteen-months old.  I didn’t know my father very well—he was the unflappable, soft-spoken stranger I called Daddy on those rare occasions I saw him—but I do know he was the stay-put kind. My mother, on the other hand, had itchy feet and no driver’s license.  That didn’t stop her from traveling; she was content to leave the driving to Greyhound. By the time I finished third grade, I had lived in four states and gone to school in three. We finally put down roots in the Texas panhandle.

 

After completing an associate degree in Texas, I married and raised two sons in Colorado, where I earned a BA and MA in English from Colorado State University. .I now live in Illinois and share my home with a brown tabby named Mary Jane. I belong to a book group, which motivates me to read outside my comfort level, and a local art guild where I focus primarily on pastel painting.

 

I've worked in the communications field for companies such as Hewlett Packard and Hyundai, been a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines, and taught non-fiction writing courses (aka rhetoric) for Colorado State University and Cardinal Stritch University in Wisconsin. 

 

I'm a member of the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), Mystery Writers of Amerca (MWA), American Crime Writers League (ACWL), and the Oklahoma Writers Federation.

 

For answers to questions I am frequently asked, check FAQ on the menu bar.