I have an early memory of reading in National Geographic's “World” magazine for kids about the world's youngest published writer. The writer was some ridiculous age - five or six and I was already older, maybe eight at the time. I was furious at myself. What had I been doing with my time all those years?

Decades later I could ask myself the same thing. The best answer might be: Starting a great many pieces of writing while telling myself it wasn't feasible to be a professional writer, and therefore doing many things that weren't writing. But now I write and, as I am no longer eligible for the accolade of world's youngest published writer, some other distinction will be necessary. I hope it is simply writing well.

As for those things I did along the way that weren't writing: My career began at Simon's Rock College of Bard in 1985, studying French, Arabic and studio fine arts. In 1988, I married and moved overseas to begin a family. After returning to the states, in 1998 I earned a psychology B.A. with honors from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.

And then I decided to try that professional writer thing after all. Madison Smartt Bell hand-selected my short story, “Asterisms,” to represent in their Sampling, the high caliber of fiction produced by the Kratz Center for Creative Writing. It was the first short story I ever truly finished to a “publishable” level.

Since then I have fed off the encouragement of Madison Smartt Bell and later, that of a small group of dedicated readers and writers, to complete one stand-alone suspense/mystery novel about a psychotherapist who specializes in dreaming, and Extrasensory Deception, the first installment in a humorous mystery series portraying a young woman whose father is a celebrated “researcher” of psi phenomenon, a topic she expounds upon with derision, despite paranormal tendencies she herself manifests and denies. Under its former title, "Hypothesis for Murder," Extrasensory Deception won the 2004 Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers.

Currently, I am expanding a previous short story, “A Walk for Mr. Wilkes,” following an older man's job history as a vehicle for examining the meaning of success, to novel length.

I live in Columbia, Maryland with my husband and three children.