The Big Truth: I love to write. As many of you know, I like to sponge bathe in words, sunbathe in words, swim in words, sashay in words. It isn’t as if I despise water or the sun or proper forms of dancing, though bathing is indeed further down my priorities list . . . It’s just that those things don’t hold a pool toy or a coconut-suncreen-scented candle to the overpowering lure of language. I play with words and that means I traipse right over any boundaries between genres. On this website, you’ll find a dizzying array of short stories, essays, poetry, and perhaps even a sheer tidal wave of words. If you’ve ever received one of my (*cough) legendary emails or hard-to-decipher handwritten notes, you’ll know I have a lot to say.

On the other hand, when I’m copyediting, I’m happily floating on a tidy and well-behaved boat wearing a life vest sponsored by The Chicago Manual of Style. The CMS wants me to preach their religion of rules and, by golly, I do. Clients hire me because I am liberal with smiley faces yet relentless with repeated words. (NO. You cannot smirk or peer or peek three dozen million times. Who does that?)

I split my time between writing (creative, freewheeling side) and copyediting (don’t try to pull that stunt, Buster) because this keeps my brain as healthy as all those people who have the New York Times spread across their laps during daily commutes while they puzzle through the crossword. I don’t always [or often] behave and I do cuss. Despite all that, generous publications have been willing to run my work between their covers, rather than shove my pages under the proverbial bed or into a dusty and disused corner. I’ve even managed to win a few awards along the way, and trust me, we emerging writers don’t make enough money to bribe the judges. (Experienced writers have enough talent bribes would never enter their minds.) If I’m composing an email, then I’m rarely serious, so please don’t take me too seriously. My tongue is planted in my cheek unless I’m eating a donut or drinking coffee, two favorite pastimes. Writing being the third, of course. Marvelous that we can drink coffee, eat donuts, and be writers, all in one.

The plan: Finish my MFA–that is happening! By summer 2026, I’ll have two master’s degrees, one more useful than the other. I’ll teach a few classes locally, mostly to my fan club of the Northern Colorado poetry community at OLLI / Front Range Forum. (We like our students ages 55 and up, smile.) Maybe even some willing or unwilling students at Front Range Community College, UNC, or any other program that will have me and my rebellious writing / orderly lesson plans. There’s a reason I recently won an Emerging Writer Award via the Mari Sandoz Society. My nature is to Mari Sandoz (encourage) other writers into their own love affair with the written / spoken / sung / flung / protest-sign / handwritten / emailed / TikToked word. That is, I’m here for the reluctant writer, who faces blocks, sucky self-esteem, or life in the United States circa now (no comment). I’m here for those who don’t believe they can live the dream that is writing. You can! I am!! Let’s do this!!! 

I’ve been putzing for too many years to count, or admit to, seventeen since I drafted my first dresser-drawer novel (an ode to Joan Baez, so I’d best get that into the world soonish–JB is as awesome as ever!), ten since I finished books two and three, also in various stages of revision. (Perfectionism is a vice. Many of us have refrigerator magnets that declaim “Write drunk, edit sober,” yet no one addresses “Write wildly, edit with perfectionism poured down your drain”) I’ve been publishing short works and poetry, building a fan club, reading locally-nationally-internationally+over Zoom, editing for talented authors, and keeping you at least mildly entertained along the way. I’ve graduated from the Book Project, received an MFA in Creative Writing, and by golly, you should expect me to produce a serious and award-winning literary novel, which goes down in the annals of history as something worth reading.

True confessions: If you like my drivel, leave me a thumbs-up or a comment and I’ll keep pumping out poetry and prose at a prodigious rate. Note: various statewide and national writing programs are counting on me to keep their stellar reputations intact. Over the next year, I’ll be conducting real research, rewriting, revising, running my pages by beta and sensitivity readers. I care about people’s feelings. To spare those who might be predisposed not to like my work, I treasure the LGBTQ+ community, I’m out and proud about my affiliations therein, as well as my beloved veterans’ communities. There is no shoving myself into little boxes, in case I ever spent any time in a box (which I can’t really remember doing, though I clearly remember that time I crawled into a hollow log and found it was already occupied by a raccoon with glowing eyes). My writing is fierce and honest. That’s how I live. It’s me, in a nutshell.

My official face (glammed-up) and my real face (makeup free and ready for a hike with the mule deer): If you’d like to read a serious “About Me,” then check out my LinkedIn bio, which I keep around in case I ever want to step back into a mainstream job. Or read one of my bios in any of the various anthologies or literary magazines that have brazenly taken the plunge and included me in their list of authors. I am capable of being good for anywhere between fifty and one-hundred words. After that, the rebel in me comes streaming out through my fingertips and my keyboard. Thankfully, my editing clients refer me to friends, so I don’t advertise my copyediting business. I’m as busy as I care to be, allowing time for hiking, traveling, pub-crawling.

So, are you in? Coming along for the ride? If so, we’ll go places that are speculative and lyrical, dangerous and edgy, as well as poetic and calming, invitational and joyous. There are at least two hundred more stories and essays locked in my computer or stuffed in a cubby or file folder. That many more trapped in my head, awaiting the chance to escape.