Contrary to what Google says, I’m not an international airport or some award granted in the UK. I’m a multi-genre writer, mostly because I can’t pick one I like best. In addition, I am the founder and chief admin of Clean Indie Reads, a network of over 3800 independent authors.
The formative years of my childhood were spent living in Scotland with summer jaunts to the Continent to visit places of historical and natural renown. I love ancient ruins as much as Renaissance magnificence, and the forbidding coasts of the North Sea as much as the majestic peaks of the Swiss Alps. All of these places fired my imagination at an early age and have stayed with me over the decades.
Our family settled in Oregon for my teen and college years, during which time my primary emphases in life were singing and acting. I’ve had my share of standing ovations, but always knew that it takes the whole company–backstage included–to make a production glorious. Those were also years where my love of script writing grew; after many comic sketches for school assemblies, etc., I was commissioned to write a musical for Children’s Educational Theater in Salem, Oregon. The fun of being on the story-making side of the equation definitely grabbed my heart.
After graduating from Western Oregon University with two bachelor degrees, I spent a year and a half in Guatemala, serving as a humanitarian missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We focused on cholera prevention, literacy, and hospital care. The optimism and big-heartedness of the Guatemalans in the face of so many dire circumstances of poverty and civil unrest inspired me and helped reset my priorities to focus on others over self.
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. After a brief teaching career (high school and private language institute), I turned to the hearth to raise and home school my two kids (both now grown). In 2011, I wrote my first novel, and then I was hooked. Since then, I’ve published over 30 titles.
When not writing, I’m teaching and practicing martial arts (3rd degree black belt) or attacking that mound of laundry that refuses to fold itself. I often have my adorable grandson in tow. I’m a Trekkie, a Potterhead, an MCU maniac, and a Downton Abbey addict. My loud, booming laugh often surprises my pets, but I never bark or bite.