BIOGRAPHY

         Psalm 139 is a favorite. It says God knew me even before I was formed in my mother’s womb. This tells me I was precious and honored in God’s sight even before I came into existence. I love this thought. Though we may sometimes feel otherwise, our parents and siblings are no accident. Every birth and every family placement is designed by God.

          I’m from a large Southern family, which was short on financial resources, but long on everything needed for happiness. My siblings and I have much for which to be thankful. My mother was strong in faith and character, whereas my father was strong in character, but weak in faith and struggled with addiction. Only near the end of his life did he become strong in faith and conquered his addition overnight. My father’s remarkable conversion and subsequent beautiful walk in faith was one of the first miracles God gave me.

          The second big miracle God gave me was the miraculous life He restored to our daughter after she wrecked her car, suffered a traumatic brain injury and lost her six-year-old son in the accident. We lost our original daughter, but God gave us a new daughter to love and her recovery must be considered spectacular. God is not finished with her. While her injury is forever, her second chance takes our breath away. We’ve never ‘gotten over’ the loss of Zachary, but have learned to live with the loss. Tis’ possible! My daughter and I wrote a book of our family’s journey through this experience. It is titled I Can’t Remember Me.

          After high school, scholarships saw me through college and graduate school and after launching my family, I had a long career in nursing. I spent years as a nurse practitioner in Women’s Health and also taught nursing. Nursing gave me the privilege of world-wide travel. I enjoyed being a nurse so much and still remain semi-active. It’s wonderful to work at something you love. 

          I married a good man early in life and we had three wonderful children, but, unfortunately, our marriage of twenty five years dissolved. During this season of my life, God sustained with the miracle of forgiveness.

         My present, dear husband and I and our huge family have managed to survive the hurdles of a blended family for over 20 years. Let’s say awesome and, God, let the miracles continue!

WHEN WRITING BECAME A TRUE PASSION

       I was mostly retired, enjoying our family, working very part-time, volunteering as parish nurse and Eucharistic minister at church and involved with community groups. This is when I received the unforeseen diagnosis of thyroid cancer. Found on routine exam.

          Just prior, our daughter Courtney and I had pulled together the story of her injury, found a publisher and were in the final stages of birthing a book. With the cancer diagnosis, I took a new look at my life.

          Art in the form of painting and writing had been a dominant trait in my extended family for a long time and I had always known my passion for writing.

         With my husband’s blessing, I quit work and resigned my volunteer positions. I made a deliberate decision to pursue my zeal for writing. I really did not know how long I had and desired to try writing fiction.  

         Well, three-plus books, blogs, newsletters and many published articles later, I am still pursuing my passion of writing.

         Life is good. Do what you like. Like what you do. No one knows the length of days allotted.

MY FAITH JOURNEY

At first, I was the only one in my family who attended church, but eventually every member came to a personal relationship with God. In my opinion, this qualifies as another miracle.

I attended a small neighborhood church from age seven through high school. My lifelong relationship with God began in that evangelical environment. My heroes and heroines of the faith worshiped there; I made lasing friendships, learned a lot about the Bible and laid a firm foundation.

That foundation stood firm during times of questioning, through dry patches and periods of deep pain. I owe much to my little church and even more to God.

The crux of my faith revolves around the incarnate Christ and what I do with Him. What are you doing with Jesus in your life?

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: Where do you find your story ideas?

A:  I watch and listen for them. At all times. You’d be amazed where ideas surface. No, you probably wouldn’t if you’re a writer also. I read faces and glean all kinds of information. The media provides questions to be answered. Family is a treasure trough of inspiration. Ideas are everywhere. 

Q: Name one of your writing struggles.

A: I can certainly name more than one! Life is full of fun things to do and the discipline to ‘write first’ is a hard one for me. It doesn’t help that I have a lot of interests. I have a writing schedule, which sometimes gets sabotaged, but that’s okay. Maybe that’s when I find a great story idea or when a break was needed and not known.

Q: What is your writing schedule?

A:  With a work in progress, I write so many words one day and then edit the next day, before starting to write again. So it’s a back and forth. I don’t have a rigid daily quota of words. Just have a feeling of when to quit for the day.

Q: Are you a plotter or a seat of the pants writer?

 A: I am strictly neither. Some writers fit definitely in one or the other camp, but I pull from both with maybe more of a tendency to being a plotter. I spend time on character sketches and use plotting tools when beginning a book. I often research as I go along, unless it’s a big theme and then I’ll spend time doing thorough research before writing. It’s important though to take time for your characters to talk to you, but I don’t want them to come off the page and totally control the story, even though they take you to interesting places. Sometimes an author must put characters back on the page after listening to them.