About me…
I’ve always lived at the edges of ocean and forest in the Pacific Northwest.
My childhood home was in Victoria—the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island. Stories and make-believe, heck, that’s always been a part of my life. As a kid, hanging out with friends, I’d be the one offering the suggestions of what fantasy we should create today…
“… Lets’ pretend that…” and off we’d go, perhaps into town to pretend we were government agents sleuthing out the dangerous spies frequenting the local Woolworth’s store. Or, as we rode to the beach, that our bicycles were noble steeds, and a particular drift wood log thrown into contorted rest on the sand was a ferocious dragon to be subdued and tamed.
Writing stories was my secret fun pastime, until that day at a Creative Writing class, the instructor said, “You know, this is at a publishable level…”
And sure enough, that particular Sci/Fi short story was soon published. Looking back, I realize it’s not a good thing to have your first story accepted—it leaves you ill prepared for the reality of the long process of continuous submit/rejection/try again that is the reality of publication.
My novel was written over a period of six long years, in minutes (sometimes hours) I could steal on a Sunday in between my job’s long hours working as an airport property manager and being mom and wife. My husband and daughter learned to cope when I dove into my office “cave” to type, pace and no doubt mumble to myself. I never expected to publish it—I just enjoyed the process of creating the fantasy world of the Elanraigh, a sentient forest, and the special young woman it chose to communicate with.
Apart from the support of my “home team” of husband and daughter, I’ve found and enjoy the camaraderie of other writers both online through a membership in SciFi Canada and my local writer buddies here in Parksville, the lovely Vancouver Island community my husband and I have chosen for our retirement. Just when some of my writer friends were beginning to dip their toes into the new world of indie publication, my book manuscript was accepted by a small press out of California that, sadly, had many internal struggles and setbacks over the five year term of my contract with them. Now that I have my rights back, I too can be an indie author.
I continue to write and publish poetry and short stories as well…but today am focused on writing The Guardian Forest’s sequel (A Scourge of Shadows) and an urban fantasy, Daughter of Earth and Fire…where at last, I get to play with dragons once again.
Other than that, I have a ready sense of humor and an over-abundance of curiosity about all kinds of things. I think that may be a universal writers’ trait—just like crows are attracted to shiny things, writers glean bits of trivia and store them away for the “someday” they will find their way into a story.