Biographies are a tough sell. John Nash, Joan of Arc, Helen Keller—people who led very readable lives, and yet the movies did better. I’ll tell you now I have no Oprah moment, not even a hint of a Lifetime movie. That said, here we are.
I grew up on Long Island in the 1970s, the daughter of 1940's parents. I was fortunate to have older sisters. They were more convincing in the part, following rules, politics, and parental advice. I bucked the system. I wanted to be a singer, devastated to learn I couldn’t carry a tune in a trough. Instead, I wrote. This was something I had an aptitude for, something that pressed boundaries, and I liked that. Looking back, my pedestrian childhood was probably a good thing, having spent more time making up stories than anything else.
Life picked up pace as I went off to college, outlining the imprint for Beautiful Disaster, though I wouldn’t write the novel for another twenty years. I attended the University of Georgia where I fell in love with a boy, a friend, and the South. It fashioned me into a chameleon of sorts. The North is home, but that evocative place changed me, giving me license and a classroom far beyond J-school where they actually did give me a degree. I’ve kept the friend and the South close, the boy not making the journey. That, too, is a good thing. If it hadn’t happened exactly that way I would have never been privy to Mia and Flynn’s story.
I fell into a freelance career, writing for magazines, newspapers—even penning a column for a while. Eventually, I knew I’d write a novel. I knew it like you know your shoe size or that despite very brown eyes your baby’s will stay perfectly blue. This is my corny segue to the present where I did marry a blue-eyed man whose generosity has afforded me many things, including the time to write. In addition to Matt and me, there are three exceptional children, two dogs, and one super-size cat, the lives of which take place in a 100-year old house outside Boston.