I was born in Chelsea Massachuttets on the Military base. I guess you could say I was a Military brat.  We moved around for about four years after I was born, then we settled down in the small town of  Lynchburg Va, my father's childhood home. I was raised in Lynchburg until I was 18 years old.  I now have two grown daughters. As a child, I always had a very vivid imagination. I remember when I was in third grade, I wrote a short story in class. It was a comedy about a dog and a very mean cat. I ended up winning the blue ribbon first prize for that story. I have to say, I was quite surprized, but very happy to have won that ribbon. Back then, that was a big thing!  I believe that was probably my first encouragement for the desire to start writing. I wrote some short stories here and there, but I didn't have the disipline at that time to keep up with it. I actually started to write more seriously when I was around 14 years old. I remember being grounded for a month at a time, not because I deserved it, especially for a month at a time. My mother just took pleasure in making me miserable, but during that time, I would read a lot. After school, I would do my homework, then settle down with a good book. I would get them from the school library, or read the ones we had at home. I liked adventure books, animal stories, thrillers,and mystery books. I also enjoyed mystery movies, thrillers, and adventure films as well.  I  would reflect on those books and movies, and my own sense of adventure, not to mention my very vivid imagination, always inspiring  me to start writing my own material. I loved it! I would get lost in the world where my writing took me. As I grew older and in to adulthood, I didn't really have time to devote to writing. I guess one could say I even lost interest in it for a long while, but in 2003, I found myself with some time on my hands. I was doing private duty nursing at the time. I remember the patient I was caring for was taking her afternoon nap. I remember I had completed my work, so I sat down to actually watch some television. Well, there was nothing on that day, so I cut off the tv, picked up my tablet, ( I usually carried one with me for work purposes), and started to actually just draw. I started to remember, for some strange reason, that time machine movie I saw as a kid, then my thought turned to other time traveling movies and tv shows, then to adventure stories I had read through out my lifetime up to that point. I remember sitting on that sofa and creating my story that became The Forest Portal. I started writing for my own entertainment at first, but then as the story grew, I got really excited about it and started to entertain the thought of publication. It took me two years to actually finish the book, but I had to turn it into a typed manuscript. I revised and revised the manuscript until I felt it was ready for publication. Note: My book's release date was December 30, 2009.      

I won the Editors Choice Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry by Poetry.com and the International Library of Poetry.