With favorite writers like Somerset Maugham, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, I've always wanted to write. In my twenties I went to Hollywood to study screenwriting, but meeting a new friend, John Stelnicki, put me onto a different life path. John had translated from the Polish a diary handed down in his family from a countess who lived in 1790s Poland. My obsession became making the story into a novel and getting it published. While teaching I worked on the project and the years passed, but I was supremely confident in the story's appeal. Initially I self published and Piers Anthony, who seldom does blurbs, went crazy over it. Within a year St. Martin's Press took notice, picked it up, and asked for a sequel even before PUSH NOT THE RIVER came out.

Gold Medal for Literature from The American Institute of Polish Culture, following in James Michener's footsteps.

An award from the Polish American Congress, Wisconsin