Biography

I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, the youngest of three daughters. My mom was a housewife and my dad worked for the DuPont Company. He was also a skilled woodworker and gardener. He taught me to fly fish and instilled in me a love of birds and wildlife, although he hated grackles and shot them with his BB gun. Also the occasional squirrel.

My first story was “Cherokee the Wild Pinto,” which I typed on my Tom Thumb typewriter. I was nine. This was followed by such works as the Revolutionary War romance Three’s a Crowd and my unfinished World War II epic Claudine. (I cast this as a movie starring Tippi Hedren and also wrote the trailer. Even then, I had control issues.) I wrote my first fan fiction based on the TV show "Garrison's Gorillas." The story showed an early (if unwitting) grasp of fantasy as I set it in France several years before D-Day, had Lieutenant Garrison waving to members of the French Resistance to show he was a friend, and specified that the Nazis spoke "German-accented English." (Well, they did on the show.)

After this outpouring of creative writing, I turned to acting and pursued it throughout high school and college.

After graduating from Bucknell University, I spent two fairly miserable years in educational administration (first as an admissions counselor and later as Assistant to the Dean of Students at a private school). Then I decided to follow my dream and become an actor.

Da was not pleased.

I met my future husband David Lofink while performing opposite him in the comedy Bedroom Farce. While still acting, I began writing children’s musicals. When I got fired from my job, I also performed in them, turning in a performance as The Yellow Bunny that rivaled some of my lesser-known college roles as a hermaphrodite and a maple tree.

I was accepted into the Lehman Engel-BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City where I met Gary Schocker, with whom I wrote several songs, a cantata, and two full-length musicals. During this time, I worked as a retail store clerk, an accounts receivable manager, a merchandising director, and a temp, eventually landing in the not-for-profit world where I became a grant writer and publications consultant.

I wrote my first novel after I had a dream (no, really) while visiting the Jersey Shore. Publishers turned it down; they didn't know how to market it. Was it a fantasy? A romance?

I was floundering through the opening chapters of the as-yet-unnamed Heartwood when I discovered the Odyssey Writers Workshop. I brought the novel with me to New Hampshire, convinced I'd return home with most of my work completed. My Odyssey relates the process I underwent as I learned otherwise. 

Suffice it to say, I left New Hampshire with a lot of paper to recycle. After I finished the first draft (a mere 180,000 words) I rethought, revised and rewrote. In March of 2004, I got the word that DAW Books wanted to buy it.

So that's me in not-so-brief. Visit my other self to learn about my other novels.