Biography

My writing career officially began at the age of five when I penciled The Wonderful Book of Poems by Susie. As predicted in its title, the book garnered rave reviews from its readership, and collections of equally clichéd fairy tales and stories followed, complete with Crayola illustrations. I was hooked. Even before this urge for fiction passed, my diary had become my closest friend and confidante, and a lifelong ritual of dishing the day’s thoughts out onto the page had begun.

In junior high I loved the Beatles (and, OK, the Monkeys) but to the dismay of my classmates I also loved dissecting language into participles and pronouns. It was thrilling to be called to the blackboard to diagram a complex sentence; my chalk line would reveal its inner structure in a flash, like an X-ray.

This love of language eventually led to a B.A. in Linguistics and nearly a decade of teaching composition and grammar to ESL students at the university in Santa Barbara.

In my thirties I left academia to pursue an interest in design. I traded in my high heels for work boots and a tool belt and spent a year remodeling and trying to flip a fixer-upper. But with the real estate market in a freefall, I quickly put my heels back on and took a job directing a design center. Needing more knowledge, I commuted to UCLA to study architecture and interior design. At age thirty-eight I learned architectural and perspective drawing, and with these new tools I fleshed out on paper all the shapes that popped into my head: from designs for nightclubs to patterns for stone flooring. I parlayed these skills into a business specializing in kitchen and bathroom remodels. Then I joined a design firm as a hotel designer, and with my colleague, developed the Homewood Suites prototype for Hilton Hotels. 

In my forties, when illness unexpectedly broadsided my career, I returned to my roots as a writer. Venturing beyond my journal, I reawakened my early affinity for fiction and  produced a novel, A Slower Pace, along with stories, essays and articles. Much of my writing during this period examined themes of disability and fortitude as I adjusted to my strange, fascinating new world. I also contributed articles to a rehab institute’s newsletter and helped a friend with cerebral palsy revise and expand his memoir, Never Give Up! (Phil Womble, McNally Loftin, 2002).

After my health returned, I moved to Santa Fe and resumed a day job, this time as manager and marketing director for a gourmet chocolate company. Besides encouraging a powerful addiction, this job also broadened my writing repertoire. For the first time I tapped the power of language to craft an image and sell a product. I found copywriting to be exhilarating.

Marking an impossible half century milestone, I moved back to Santa Barbara and established Word-Savvy, where, working with a high-tech automation firm, my copywriting has expanded to include website content and online publishing. I also enjoy working as an editor/proofreader, reliving my thrill at the blackboard as I help clients zap errors and tighten their writing. I continue to write creative non-fiction essays and articles both in my free time and for hire.

Whether writing or editing, I enjoy helping my clients deliver their message in succinct, compelling prose. As an ardent lover of language, like the late Robert Cormier, I believe in the elegance and power of the “exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.” I hope to share that power with you.

Education:

St. John’s College, Santa Fe, New Mexico
University California Santa Barbara, B.A. in Linguistics, 1980
(with Highest Honors, member Phi Beta Kappa)

UCLA, Interior and Environmental Design Program, 1992-96
(3 courses short of Professional Four-Year Certificate)