I have loved fiction and poetry since I could read, and here I use the word with that upper case emphasis to indicate READing an author. I have read incessantly from that day on, and often finished a book a day in middle school, I think all of the novels for young women, those novels of manners. I won a writing award for the National Scholastic Magazine in the ninth grade for a short story. I went on to write poetry throughout college, winning awards for many of these poems, short stories and plays. I attended school for an extended time, taking three college degrees and completing the class work for a Ph.D. I studied English and Japanese literature in my undergraduate years, Comparative Literature for a Master's Degree, and then also received a Bachelor of Science for Information Technology (which I did for a living for thirty years) Even during my working years, I never gave up writing, but had little time to worry about publishing. It was enough for me to find an hour here or there to sit down and put pen to paper. Many of the books that I am publishing now were started in those years. For poetry, after trying on big city alienation and post modernism, I turned around 180 degrees after I read the poetry of Adrienne Rich. Suddenly I wanted to write poems with meaning in plain language. Since then, I have found my own voice, that uses rhythm and internal rhyme but still finds the "story" in the metaphor. I have many favorite authors, but right now, Margaret Atwood is absolutely tops on my list. In my most recent work, which was started in 1990, I have emulated two authors of travel diaries that used humor in their narratives: Mark Twain in his Innocents Abroad, and Francis Trollope's travelogue of her trip to the U.S. in 1830.    

Tompkins Award for Short Story, “Mrs. Locke’s Legacy,” 2007.
Heck-Rabbi Award for 3-act play, Lessons in Lies, 2006.
Judith Siegel Pearson Award for Poetry, “Father’s Day’s for Boys,” 2005.
John Clare Award for Poetry, “Father’s Day’s for Boys,” 2005.
Tompkins Award for Poetry, “Appalachian Trail,” 2005.
Tompkins Award for Poetry, “The Designer’s Hand,” 2004.
The National Library of Poetry Award, “Horse Latitudes,” 1997.
American Academy of Poets Award, “Meditations,” 1978.
Miles Poetry Awards, “North Shore, Oahu,” 1967.