I've been fascinated with science my whole life, especially astronomy, space science, and the space program.  I enjoy teaching high school Chemistry and Physics, but my passion is space.  I started reading science fiction in high school, almost to the exclusion of all other literature.  i realized after a while that i was short-changing myself by such a limited diet, and tried to broaden my reading.  I was able to attend the Graduate Institute in Liberal Education at St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM and read from a curriculum based on the Great Books of western culture.  I really enjoyed that.  I feel far more enriched now than I did before.    I'm currently finishing up the school year, and looking forward to spending more time on my writing and art work this summer.  Summers are a re-generative time for me.  I love being in the classroom and interacting with students during the year, but summers are "my" time, and time for my family.  We almost always go one vacation.  Last summer we visited my youngest sister in Washington State.  She acted as a tour guide for us all over the Northwest: we went to the Pacific coast at Kalaloch, the Hoh rain forest, Mount St. Helens, and Mt. Ranier.  I loved it.  The more different environments I can experience, the greater wealth of detail I can bring to the setting s of future stories.    I've been writing science fiction stories off and on since high school, but it has only been in the last 5-7 years that I began to work seriously at it, finally getting enough confidence to make submissions.  I've always had an imagination full of stories, interesting characters, and exotic, extraterrestrial scenes, so it decided it was only reasonable to try to start writing those down. I' m not sure I really do feel like an author, yet.  First and foremost, I feel like a teacher.  Writing is something I do as an avocation, something to refresh my spirit and engage my imagination.  I may not actually feel like a true writer until I can hold a copy of my first book in my hand.  

In the summer of 2007, I was awarded an Honorable Mention in the prestigious Writers of the Future Contest for my science fiction short story "Third Contact." It finished in the top 10% of all entries nationwide.

I am also an active member of the Mississippi Writers Guild chapter in Meridian. I've performed readings from my work at their Literary Artists on Stage events.