Welcome to my website. I’m a late-blooming debut author. My first historical novel, ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS, was published in August 2020, by Blackstone Publishing. My second, IN ALL GOOD FAITH, was published in August 2021, also by Blackstone.

I’m a native Virginian and grew up a beach kid, swimming on a team and then life lifeguarding. Truth be told, I hated the summer heat and wasn’t at all athletic. I was that child who watched General Hospital and Dark Shadows after school every day. I read all the time and made patchwork quilts for fun.

For the past twenty-five years I’ve lived closer to the mountains, in an old farmhouse in Keswick, Virginia, just outside Charlottesville, with my husband and three to four dogs. My two grown stepsons (and new granddaughter!) live nearby. Daughter Annabel is thriving in New York, working for an up-and-coming marketing firm. Empty nesting, in my opinion, must not to be underestimated. So far, it’s been introvert heaven.

The farmhouse where we live was built around 1825 and I use it as a setting in both of my historical novels.

The old one-room bunkhouse on our property is my writing spot. It’s freezing in winter and sweltering in summer. There’s no plumbing, and the mice enjoy my stash of knitting yarn.

Before writing:

In 1981 I received a BA in Fine Art from Mary Baldwin College (now Mary Baldwin University and coeducational). After a summer on Nantucket, I was off like a bat out of hell to New York and a graduate program at the Fashion Institute of Technology. 

Before I finished the program I was hired at my dream job and worked for several years as on the design team at Ralph Lauren. I got paid to knit and draw and find beautiful fabrics and do research at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A move to Nantucket Island followed and for seven years and one marriage I had a shop on Center Street, in the row of buildings known as “Petticoat Row,” where, in whaling days, the hearty women of the island ran retail shops while the men were out hunting Moby Dick. Those were some long, gray winters.

About Writing:

I came to writing late in life. In fact, I can honestly say that I fell into it.

When my daughter began high school, I signed up for classes at Piedmont Community College. My love of literature prompted the return to school, and I loved being in the classroom. Never mind that I was the oldest student.

By far.

That morphed into pursuing an English degree online through Mary Baldwin University. When I found myself facing a choice between Literature of the Restoration (yawn) and The Writing of Fiction, I chose the writing course, which was taught by the wonderful Sarah Kennedy, author of the Cross and Crown Series.

Two weeks into the writing class, I broke my right ankle.

Don’t text and walk. Just don’t.

Did I mention that the break occurred mere hours before I was supposed to leave for France? Well, it did. It was really quite dramatic. The online writing class became a refuge during eight weeks I was stuck at home recovering. I began what is now my first novel. When the class ended, I kept writing.

In 2018, I finished my MFA in Creative Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

For links to my work, see my Published work and notices page. To view my Author’s Guild profile, click here.

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