Biography

I attempted my first novel when I was in fifth grade. One of my worst memories is of the day my brother found its hiding spot. He ran around the house shouting excerpts while I chased him. By the time I wrenched it out of his hands, it was crumpled and torn. I found another hiding spot and kept on working. To this day, nothing can spin me up faster than having someone lean over my shoulder and start reading one of my works in progress. In fact, a dramatic reading of even one of my more polished pieces of prose can turn my stomach.

My attempts to write were triggered by love of reading. I consumed stacks and stacks of books. I read classic and contemporary novels, fantasy and mystery series, romances and sports stories. I devoured every genre except horror. I would read on my way home from the library. I would read cereal boxes. If I had one of my piano pieces memorized, I would prop a novel on the music stand and let my fingers go through the motions while I finished an exciting chapter.

Most of my early attempts at writing were fantasies or ghost stories. Much of my current work is sports related. This comes from time spent playing baseball in the backyard, football in the snow, basketball in the driveway, and volleyball in the church gymnasium after choir practice. Competitive, but uncoordinated would have described my play fairly when I was younger. My height—I was always one of the two tallest kids in my grade until the boys started growing in high school--insured that basketball was my sport.

In eighth grade, I wrote a short story for a national competition. I didn’t win. I didn't even place, but my English teacher, Mrs. Karen Alfonsi, who looked over my project before I sent it in, said she was sure I could be a writer someday. Despite this encouragement and doing well enough in the humanities to be my high school’s nominee in English and Literature for the Duluth Tribune’s Press Awards as a senior, I decided to study electrical engineering at Michigan Technological University. It seemed both practical and interesting. In college, my composition and literature courses were my recreation. I produced bad poetry and toyed with a young adult novel. But I didn’t start writing seriously again until after I decided to stay home when my oldest daughter was born.

In 1995, an editor at Lerner sent me a revision letter for a sports novel. I spent several months rewriting to her specifications and then sent the project back in. The eventual response was one of the nicest rejection letters I have ever received. Even though she had been unable to get the manuscript through the acquisitions committee, she liked my writing style and my willingness to revise. So she offered me the chance to submit a proposal for one of her nonfiction series. The result was Fundamental Softball, a book on how to play that game that came out in 1997. I eventually sold two more books to Lerner: Play-by-Play Track and Play-by-Play Field Events, both of which came out in January of 2004.

I’m immensely proud of my books for Lerner, but I wanted to write novels. A few sales to magazines, personal rejection letters and critiques at conferences assured me that my projects were well-written. I didn’t know what else I could do to make my dream of becoming a novelist come true. My writing life turned the corner when I won the 1999 Missouri Mentorship Award with Gary L. Blackwood, author of The Shakespeare Stealer books and other wonderful novels. Over the course of the year, Gary gave me a process to take a novel from outlines and character sketches to a finished manuscript. He stressed that the protagonist must have something at stake--that there be real exterior and interior conflict. I can never pay Gary back for what he did for me. So I’m taking the advice of the award-winning science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein and paying forward. I agreed to serve as the 2005 Ellen Dolan Missouri Mentor. I'm also an instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature. My students learn quite quickly that I'm absolutely batty on the subject of conflict.

Once I’d acquired that knowledge, I was ready when the situation for Defending Irene presented itself to me. After almost three years living in Merano, Italy, I felt like I had the knowledge to portray events taking place in that culture realistically. I’m not fluent in Italian, but I can hold up my end of a conversation without getting a headache.

These days, I spend a lot of time working on my laptop. But when I’m ready to start a brand new scene I go to Panera Bread or some other coffee shop and order a caffe mocha. I spend the next two or three hours writing longhand. It’s a way of completely immersing myself in a scene without distraction from the phone, email, or housework. When my kids are out of the school for the summer, I can do the same thing at the beach. Since the laughing, splashing and music stay at a steady hum, I can tune them out.

When I’m not writing, I attend my children’s games and concerts. I enjoy snow-shoeing and playing frisbee with my husband. Despite my poor practice habits as a child, I’m a half-way decent pianist. I’ve accompanied choirs and two musicals. I currently play organ at my church.