I was keeping journals and writing at a very young age. I was raised in a house of voracious readers. Our parents read a lot. In the 60's and 70's my dad even took several correspondence courses. My older sister read a lot as well. And I was introduced to poets and classic novels at an early age. Whether I was reading Dylan Thomas, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Fyodor Dostoyevsky, writing was brewing in my blood. I majored in History in college because I loved historical fiction and I wanted to write books like Follett. Having had a wonderfully close-knit family, I have a vault of memories and my first published book was a memoir.