About

Writer. Traveler. Adventurer.

Enjoying vacation in Tuscany.

Writing is the greatest adventure of all.

I love words and language. Some children are drawn to music, others to art, but I have always been drawn to the printed word. There’s been a writer deep within me waiting for the opportunity to assert itself. When I first heard its whispers, it guided me into theater as a career. I earned my MA from Wake Forest University then worked all levels of jobs in community, children’s and professional theaters before moving from nonprofits to corporate America. Writing seeped into my work with such organizations as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The National Park Service, Georgia Shakespeare Festival and Virginia Tech.

Scripts gave me insights into dialogue and conflict, and the rehearsal room taught me about the rich complexities of character that fuels my fiction writing. When I first embarked on writing a novel, it seemed like such an odyssey to undertake, a quest inherent with danger and an overwhelming potential for failure. Little wonder that I wrote scenes for my first manuscript over a period of ten years. I now write full time and have completed four manuscripts, which have earned me a number of awards.

I grew up in Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie then headed off to live in Maine, Manhattan, Virginia, the North Carolina Outer Banks, Atlanta, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. I now call a barrier island in Florida home, where I live with my husband and two adored cats.

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My Fiction Writing

I write romance because love triumphs.

The more I write, the more clearly I define the themes presented in my stories.  My characters inevitably set out on a journey of self discovery that leads to acceptance.  The stories are all rooted in a community, whether it’s the acting community of Manhattan, the glittering and sometimes seamy nightlife of Las Vegas, or the ton in Regency England.  The hero and heroine fall in love while each discovers his or her inner strengths/truths.  But they don’t live in a vacuum—no, they also discover the sanctity of familial love—how it defines them, buoys them, shapes their lives, and how even when they say it’s not important, it’s vital to their self-image.

I was an avid reader from a very young age.  In my early teens, my mom introduced me to the historical fiction of Elswyth Thane and the Georgian and Regency comedies of Georgette Heyer.  I was still in high school when she slipped me my first Kathleen Woodiwiss and forever hooked me on romance.  In college, I studied theater and the works of William Shakespeare, spending fifteen years working in college, community, children’s and regional professional theaters.  Shakespeare introduced me to big casts, universal truths and emotions that speak to future generations, character-driven plots, classic plot devices and strong, brave, defiant heroines.  Women ahead of their time.

Other favorite authors include Dorothy L. Sayers, Jane Austen, Dick Francis, Jean Auel, E.B. White, Tom Clancy, Judith McNaught, Jill Barnett, Susan Wiggs and Nora Roberts.