I wrote my first " book" when I was four years old. It consisted of a sheet of paper folded in half, with the words MY  BOOK block printed on the front. Inside there was nothing, as apparently I either lacked the patience to write a story or had not lived long enough to have anything to write about. In Grade 11 I joined my high school newspaper staff. But by mid-term I  had dropped out of school, not to return for a full decade. During those dropped-out years, my writing consisted of personal letters, technical materials for one of my many employers, and the usual "closet poetry" of a young woman.  At 26, I returned to school--a community college--where my enthusiasm for writing term papers, coupled with guidance from an elderly science ficion writer named Les Cole, earned me good grades and a scholarship to UCLA.  A degre from UCLA did not, however, earn me a career in writing. Suspecting that I still had not done enough living to have anything worthwhile to write about, I set off to Mexico on a motorcycle. Stories from this adventure, and others, can be found in my first book, Dangerous Places: Travels on the Edge. This book came much later, though. First there were more decades of wandering and writing, which at this point in my life took the form of freelance journalism. Not until I settled down in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia, with a partner I adore, did I at last "become" the writer I had always dreamed of being. I have had 11 books published in the past 15 years, with more, I hope, to come.     

My most recent novel, THE WOMAN SHE WAS, was featured on the cover of "BC Bookworld" and discussed on Canada's nationwide radio program."Sunday Morning." A previous novel,FAR FROM BOTANY BAY, won the 2011 OneBookOneKootenay prize. Most of my young adult books have also won awards, both in the US and Canada. One was made into a movie I scripted, which is regularly aired on TV in December as a "Christmas classic." (see website for details.)