About

Back in the pre-pandemic days, I enjoyed getting out of my writing cave and speaking to readers directly. At Book Expo in New York City, I had a chance to talk to readers and give away some books. At the time, Dartfrog Books was distributing one of my short story collections to bookstores. Because I publish on both Amazon and through Ingram, readers can still order my books from their favorite bricks-and-mortar bookstore. However, I’m not a big name author, and my most of my sales come from online retailers, not from bookstores or local book fairs.

Here’s a little about me.

I took the photo on the previous page when I was Lisbon, doing research for a novel about a French drawing student who traveled all the way to San José del Cabo in Baja California as part of a scientific expedition. This was in 1769, prior to the American Revolution, and it was unheard of for non-Spaniards to be allowed access to Spanish territory. I had to visit the historical archives in Spain, France, and Portugal to find out the whats, wheres, whys, and whens of this epic voyage.

Fortunately, learning languages is one of my hobbies. I speak passable Spanish and German and can get by in French. This language fetish is driven my desire to communicate.

I love to cook and am more or less always trying to lose weight. Nature inspires me and restores my spirits. Until my recent spine surgery, you could have found me hiking in the foothills of California or camping in Arizona’s high country. I love the red rocks of Sedona and waves crashing against the cliffs of Point Reyes.

To keep from thinking about whether I need to put in a load of laundry or run to the grocery store, I hang out in coffee shops. Quite often I eavesdrop, and these overheard stories form the basis for many of my short stories.

Before my kids went off to college, I worked as a carpenter, but I’ve actually been writing for more than fifty years. I have a Master’s in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State and a Certificate in Novel Writing from Stanford. A few years back, I was the Writer-in-Residence for the City of Mesa Public Libraries. I’ve taught writing at Arizona State and presented workshops on writing and marketing books in many places, including ASU’s Desert Nights, Rising Stars’ conference and Northwestern’s Summer Writing Conference.

I’m embarrassed to say that I’m an inveterate grade grubber and “contest enterer,” probably to my detriment. Because I’m never satisfied that my work is ready for publication, I hang onto stuff way too long.

My short stories have won the Barry Hannah Prize, the Ron Rash Award, the Seven Hills Review Prose Prize, the Jeanne M. Leiby Chapbook Award, the American Literary Review Fiction Prize, and the Matt Clark Prize. One of my stories was a runner-up in Calyx’s Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing.

My debut novel, Montpelier Tomorrow, won a Gold Medal for Drama from the Readers’ Favorites International Book Awards, and it was a finalist for the Bellwether Prize, the Next Generation INDIE Book Awards, and the Eric Hoffer Prize.

Bonds of Love & Blood was a Finalist in Foreword Reviews‘ INDIEFAB Book Awards. (I updated the cover in 2024, but the content hasn’t changed.) The book also won a Silver Medal for Short Stories from the Readers’ Favorites International Book Awards. Even though I’m mainly consumed by novel-writing, I still love the short story form.

I have even written a memoir, Surrender, about my unwed pregnancy and my first child’s birth and subsequent surrender to adoption. In 2024, that nonfiction book won a Gold Medal from the New England Independent Publishers’ Association.

My writing has been published in American Literary Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Calyx, Embark, Folio, Four Quarters, New Delta Review, North Atlantic Review, River Oak Review, Ruminate, Seven Hills Review, StoryQuarterly, Superstition Review, The Briar Cliff Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Yalobusha Review, and many others.