I have always loved to write, beginning with the junior high school newspaper and continuing on today. While in grad school, where my research focused on gender in the workplace, a professor told me to “take my personality out of” my writing. You’d think that I would have gotten the hint that scientific writing wasn’t for me, but I’m slow. So, after getting my doctorate, I taught and consulted for several years. As time went by, I became more and more interested in the subject of conflict and violence, so I did a post-doctoral fellowship at Northeastern University’s Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict. While at Northeastern, I conducted research on youth violence and domestic violence. By this time, I had (finally) learned that dull and dry reporting of statistics was not my passion, so I published my first book, Sins of Omission, targeted to a non-scientific audience.
All this time I continued freelance writing, focusing on human interest stories. Over time, my love of travel and food led to two regular newspaper features about food history. Then, I began writing about nature subjects for children, resulting in two picture books (so far!): Once in a Full Moon and Pirate Ships and Shooting Stars.
But fiction has always been my go-to reading addiction, and I’ve been busy writing short stories. And I’m very excited to announce that my first novel, a murder mystery, is in press now! As soon as I find out what the publisher wants the title to be (my thought wasThe First Murder), I’ll let you all know!