BIO

A published and paid journalist since age 14, I served as co-editor of our city newspaper's weekly youth page section. A poor kid and first-generation college student, I worked hard to get a full ride to Kansas State University, where I interned in the school’s public relations office, editing their faculty-staff newsletter and writing news releases for their colleges of engineering and veterinary medicine.

My career includes many journalism and media relations successes, as well as plenty of failures. The positives include publication of pitched news releases in USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and more. 

I represented Cessna Aircraft Company and The American Red Cross as media relations manager, specializing in crisis communication. I worked for months at the National Red Cross in Washington, D.C., after September 11, 2001, aiding their communications office. 

After non-profit, I went to for-profit, entering the world of general aviation, where I got to understand the intricacies of and fly on many private jets. I was the anchor for their internal news show, among many other media relations duties, from handling information dissemination about mass layoffs to plane crashes. 

I freelanced for The Manhattan Mercury and The Wichita Eagle newspapers here and there throughout. 

(Career failures provided on request, and include, but aren’t limited to escapades dressed as a grouchy anthropromorphic platelet.)

However, fiction was my first writing dream, though I studied journalism instead, so I could be a “writer who made money,” which, maybe, wasn't quite the financial boon I imagined. Still, I promised Mrs. Titus, my second-grade teacher who encouraged my first published poem (and who I still visit yearly), I would try fiction some day. So, at 46, I am giving young adult fiction my all. 

I am a hard worker, who is energized by feedback, revision and editing, and accustomed to meeting deadlines.  

I am a volunteer patient liaison at our abortion clinic, an art museum board member, and a helper at our humane society. I perform original beat poetry dressed as a table. I am a pickle connoisseur, an amateur mechanic for my ’79 Trans Am, and a world traveler, who is glad to be back on the circuit post-pandemic.

For 24 years, I’ve been married to my story's co-hero, with two dynamic, bright and inspiring high-school-age offspring. I also have an Aussie who binge-watches me like his favorite Netflix show, and a white cat who wouldn’t notice or care if I never came home.