What is something unique/quirky about you?

My background is in theater. My BA, MFA and  Ph.D. (ABD) work were all in theater. But I always loved books and made up all sorts of stories in my head. When I decided to settle down and have a family, I let go of my aspirations in theater and took up the pen. I wrote the lead characters of Finding Perdita as actors because they say, “Write what you know.”

Tell us something really interesting that's happened to you!

I went to high school in St. Andrews, Scotland. It was (at the time) all girls and the school was beautiful, located in an old monastery. Because of the high stone walls, one could walk all the way around St. Andrews and never see my hidden school. Felt a lot like living in Hogwarts with it’s awesome views not of lochs but of the North Sea! Also, St. Andrews is a very eerie town, just walking around the ruins, or listening to the tales of Queen Mary of Scots haunting our old library was enough to keep one shivering in one’s bed.

If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?

With my family, doing art, and enjoying our local community garden.

What are you passionate about these days?

Our planet. I might not be around to see it, but I believe we can live sustainably and fix the mess we have left to our children.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I bought a bracelet with the word “writer” on it. I put it on to remind myself. But really, I edit more than write. Writing is easy for me because I just let fly my imagination. It’s coming back to all those words, words, words and finding the mess left over after a very wild party. It’s in the cleaning up and placement of those words that real writing occurs. You can tell from that, I’m a pantser and it can take years for me to figure out what the heck I was writing about.

What do you do to unwind and relax?

I read, garden, swim and do crochet. Some of the charity crochet are baby hats for premi babies in NICU. I come to tears every time I think about when a fellow author told me of how her daughter had been born premature and how much it would have meant to her at the time had someone given her a handmade hat to keep her tiny daughter warm.

What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?

I went on a writing retreat to Estes Park, Co. and stayed in the Stanley Hotel. The very hotel which inspired Stephen King to write The Shining. It was so gorgeous in the Rockies and I could feel magic humming around me. My first morning I awoke to the bugling of the elk herds which strode around the village. I also went to the Stokercon last year in Providence RI, right in the middle of a hurricane. Here was Lovecraft’s beloved city, flooded and blown about by high winds. Again I stayed in a wonderful old hotel, the Biltmore, and it was quite inspirational. Darryl Schweitzer, a Lovecraft expert, took us on a haunted tour of the city. I saw the house Lovecraft lived in, the bust and memorial put up of him. This year I’ll be making another pilgrimage, to Grand Rapids, MI to this year’s Stokercon. I and my co-editors are finalists for our anthology, A New York State of Fright. Wish me luck!