Unlike some, I didn't start out to write a novel. I viewed learning fiction techniques as a means to improve my non-fiction writing. To that end, I took an eight-week class on how to write a novel. Our assignment was to write the first chapter of our book. I volunteered to read mine aloud. After I finished, the class applauded. “That’s really good,” my teacher said. “What happens next?” I reminded her that she’d asked us to write the first chapter, not what happened next, so I had no idea. She pushed me to continue the story, and by the end of the class, I wanted to know what happened next. That quest, to tell my character’s stories, to give them a voice, to learn what happens next, drives me as a writer.

Semi-finalist Amazon/Penguin Breakthrough Award (ABNA) Death of an Island Tart

Second place, Mainstream Mystery, 2007 Daphne du Maurier Award for Death of an Idiot Boss

Semi-finalist 2006 James Jones Fellowship Contest for Death of an Idiot Boss

Recipient of 2005 Gary Provost Memorial Scholarship—Writer’s Retreat Workshop

Third place, 2002 Rupert Hughes Award for Prose, for WIP Death of an Island Tart