Here's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I have been writing stories for as long as I can remember. Born and raised in Rochester, New York, and its various suburbs, I had everyday, working class parents. My dad worked for a local highway department and my mother was a stay-at-home mom until my teen years when she began working at a bank. Only as I got older did I focus on the many journals my mother kept and my maternal grandfather's love of crossword puzzles and realize this is probably where I got my affection for words.

Of course, it's a rare writer who thinks early on that she can actually spend her life writing without getting a 'real job.' Being a novelist never really crossed my mind - not seriously, anyway. So, I went to college in Mansfield, Pennsylvania and earned myself a Bachelor's Degree in Mass Communications (emphasis on Broadcasting with a minor in Theater, if you want to get technical). Fresh out of school (and not having written much aside from term papers in a very long time), I was ready to conquer the world of television. I got a job at Rochester's local public television station, where I worked my tail off for a wage so miniscule I might as well have been working for free. It didn't take me long to figure out that I didn't have the patience to work my way up in that field - it would mean moving out of my hometown and I wasn't ready to do that. I was the oldest of five daughters, one of whom was only a toddler at the time, and I didn't relish the idea of leaving my family. So, I left my job instead. Long story short (too late!), I began working in sales (which is totally the wrong career for my personality, but that's another story all together), met my lovely wife Bonnie - who would change my world forever - and began writing again on the side. It started with little bits here and there, a short story, an essay, a journal. Then I got a computer, went online, and discovered the astonishingly enormous world of fan fiction. I began to toy with it (and I discovered it to be a great tool for a writer to improve her dialogue and descriptive phrases). I met many other aspiring writers online and we used each other as sources of assistance, brainstorming, proofreading, and whatever else we needed to help one another improve our craft. It was in this online world that I met my dear friend Tonya Muir, one of the more talented writers to whom I'd had the pleasure of connecting. We bounced ideas off one another, proofed each other's work, and even began collaborating on a story together. We taught one another that it was okay to write what we wanted to write (lesbian stories) and not necessarily what would sell best (hetero stories). Tonya also was acquainted with a woman who was starting up a publishing company and I just happened to have the first draft of a manuscript I'd been writing. After much persuading, she got me to send my manuscript to her friend's new company. They accepted it right away and before I knew it, I was a real, honest-to-goodness published novelist.

Bonnie and I have been together for more than fifteen years (which boggles our minds if we dwell on it too long). We had a small union ceremony in New Zealand during the Millennium, which not many people can say, I expect. We’ve also promised each other that when New York State okays marriage for LGBTQ people – which we have no doubt it will – we will have a real wedding; I think we deserve one. We have a new house, two dogs, and a slew of nieces and nephews to keep us on our toes.

In 2007, we did something we’d talked about for a long time: we moved away. We were tired of winter, and we felt like we were stuck in a rut, so we decided a change of scenery was in order. We spent four months in Florida (which was just…wrong), left there, and settled in North Carolina for almost two years. It was a beautiful place to live and you can’t beat the weather there, but we were surprised by how homesick we got. We missed our families and friends terribly, and when several family members at once came down with health issues, we decided it was time to go back home, that being 600 miles away was just too hard when loved ones are sick. So in 2009, we moved back to Rochester, and we’re ecstatic. We just bought a house and we finally feel like we’re settling down after more than two years of restlessness. It feels…right.

I've discovered that writing is an ever-improving craft; that I will continue to get better throughout my entire writing career and that's okay. In addition to all the fiction I read, I've also started reading about writing. You can never learn too much about that at which you strive to be good. A couple writing books I highly recommend: On Writing by Stephen King; Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and both versions of The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood. They're funny and entertaining as well as informative. Chatting online with fellow authors has also been an enormous help. Sometimes only another writer can sympathize honestly with you when you're totally convinced that you just suck.