Hello, it’s swell to have you here

Most of my posts will be free, but I want to give something extra to those who have offered to become paid subscribers or founding donors. So I’m going to serialize a novella I just finished writing that is near and dear to my heart. Titled SACRAMENTS FOR THE LIVING, it’s an epistolary novel that celebrates an older woman’s life through memories and through her stories about certain objects in her house. What’s the story behind a stand of pearls? What about a rubber band, of all things, that has been carefully saved for years? Paid subscribers will get a few pages twice a week, along with behind-the-scenes commentary about what prompted me to write the pages you get. I will also save the recipes I offer for subscribers.

About me

I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on December 2, 1948, in a hospital that has been torn down, which I’m pretty steamed about. When I was three years old, my father reenlisted in the Army, and I spent my growing up years moving around a lot—twice, I went to three schools in a single academic year. You can understand my dilemma when people ask me where I’m from. My usual answer is “Um…..nowhere?”

I’ve loved books and reading from the time my mother began reading to me, and I’ve loved writing ever since I could hold a pencil. I submitted my first poem to American Girl magazine when I was nine years old. It was rejected, and it took twenty-five years before I submitted anything again. Then, I entered a contest in a magazine and won. I wrote for magazines for ten years, then moved into novels and haven’t stopped yet. I usually do a book a year. I’ve won a number of awards, which are listed elsewhere in the interest of false modesty.

Before I became a writer, I was a registered nurse for ten years, and that was my “school” for writing—taking care of patients taught me a lot about human nature, about hope and fear and love and loss and regret and triumph and especially about relationships–all things that I tend to focus on in my work. I worked as a waitress, which is also good training for a writer, and I sang in a rock band which was not good for anything except the money I made. I was a dramatic and dreamy child, given to living more inside my head than outside, something that persists up to today and makes me a terrible dining partner. I have two daughters and four grandchildren.