We ask children, “What do you want to become when you grow up?” We ask young adults, “What do you want to major in/study/do when you graduate?” We ask aging adults, “What do you want to do/become when you retire?” Good fiction weaves change throughout the narrative, guiding us, the reader, to experience the characters' wonder and distress equally, to come out the other side sweating as if we'd just made those decisions, faced those challenges, grappled with fears, embraced successes and leapfrogged over common sense ourselves. We relish watching our favorite characters transform, in part because it provokes satisfaction or an awareness of a need for change.

 

This is why I write.

 

My professional background includes magazine publishing (travel, food, restaurant critiques), marketing communications, and change management. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the third child of Connecticut Yankees, but I grew up in Miami Beach, FL, with two sisters and a mother.  I lived in many different states in the US and in Toronto, Canada, for five years. I've found that every place I have lived influences my work, and my work influences the way I see these different residences. For instance, Mena's Voice  comes out of my work in transformation and my two years of commuting weekly to Austin, TX, where I discovered the great-tailed grackle and fell in love with their cocky, trickster ways. The Falling evolved from my years of living in a suburb north of Cincinnati, OH, and learning about the farmers who settled in the area. 

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