ABOUT ME
I am the daughter of an English teacher and my parents filled me with the beauty of the written word from the cradle onward. Bed time stories were a given. No T.V. The first stories I remember are Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, beloved by my whole family. We read them every spring together or on our own. Even now we all revisit them from time to time.
Born and raised in the Hudson River Valley, I was there when Rip Van Winkle snored and the headless horse man galloped through the night. I left the valley the moment I turned 18, but the art and wisdom of story remain with me.
Traveling here and there, I have seen much of the world. None is more beautiful or rich in story than the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania where my novel NATIVE is set. I have tried to put on paper the wonder of the ancient and divergent cultures living in those blue hills and water fed valleys.
My work as a therapist has been extremely helpful since my tales are mainly about people in all their wondrous forms of good and evil, courage and cowardice and heart rending humanness.
Some years ago, I had to leave the Allegheny Mountains and now live in Tidewater Virginia where life takes on a different hue: unhurried, level, circumspect. My children and grandchildren live not too far away, which is more than I could ask for.
Currently I am working on a sequel to NATIVE and, yes, it takes me and my readers back to the mountains where Clare and Annie confront a new set of problems.