Look and Listen

Biography

I began my career as a writer in 1998 with the publication of my first column in a local paper. By day, I was a high school English teacher, but at night and on vacations, I began writing novels and working as a freelance journalist. By 2001, teaching bored me, and I couldn't wait to get home to my characters. I left teaching and began pursuing a full-time gig as a writer. I worked as a reporter, editor, publishing, and public relations director, while also working on my fiction. I did whatever it took so most of my working life involved writing of some type. From 2007-2011, I worked as an editor and PR director for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. I hunted pythons in the Everglades and wrote about it and appeared on national TV talking about it. I became known around the agency as the Python Princess. My last major job put me at the forefront of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the media director for a project to relocate hundreds of sea turtle nests from the Gulf to the Atlantic so when the eggs hatched the hatchlings would not suffocate in the oil. Currently, I work from home, writing two blogs and working on my novels. It's amazing how much of my time is spent in marketing myself. I'd like to just sit and write all day. Trails in the Sand is my fifth novel and the second one self-published. I published Live from the Road in May 2012. My blog and my novels contain the elements most dear to my heart, ranging from love to the environment. I believe in living lightly upon this earth with love, laughter, and passion. In my spare time, I love spending time with my husband, Robert. We golf, travel, kayak, and spend time on our boat. We also garden so our summer months are spent close to home, growing, harvesting, preserving, and eating the products from the earth. During the winter, that bounty keeps us full and warm (most of the time).

Inspiration

I grew up in a family where I was pretty much left alone. I had four older brothers - much older than me. My parents were old and tired when I was born. Books became my friends along with the characters in them. I found that my real friends always loved it when I told a story. I could relate well verbally and on paper. My mother and her depression throughout my childhood deeply influenced me. I think in every book I've written, there is one mother who I based on my own. Thankfully, my first book was published two years after her death or I don't think I could have written what I did. My writing has helped me heal the hurts from her rejections. In Trails in the Sand, the character of Gladdy is based on my mother, and at this stage of my life, it was important that I give understanding to why a mother might act in a certain way. I gave my mother redemption in this book, and I think I've finally forgiven her.