Biography (aka: all about me)

		The Non Writing Life I’m a rabid Anglophile. Blame my father: in 1975 he was accepted for a Fulbright Teaching Exchange, and my family moved to Manchester, England for a year. We traveled the UK and the Continent extensively, and by the time we came home, we all thought Britannia ruled—and still do. I love rock-n-roll. However, I am of the firm belief that the Supreme God of all music is Bob Dylan. My tastes extend beyond rock n-roll, thankfully—I love Big Band music, especially stuff from the WWII era, as well as singers like Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday. I also have a fondness for pure pop junk like Abba, and well crafted pop, especially if it’s written by Burt Bacharach or Elvis Costello. My husband and I have been married nineteen years. He’s a writer, too, and co-author of the best sellers DIE BROKE and SECOND ACTS. We are "parents" to a Newf named Rocky. I’m a bit of a spiritual seeker and am fascinated by what draws people to different spiritual paths. I’ve attended Wiccan midsummer festivals, meditated with Tibetan monks, (Believe it or not, the only Tibetan Monastery in the West is here in Ithaca) and every year, at the end of the summer, I rent a small cottage on the grounds of a Benedictine Monastery and just completely unwind for a week, far from phones and civilization. It’s a great way to recharge one’s creative batteries. I’m a firm believer in “giving back” to the community in which I live. From 1992-94, I volunteered at a soup kitchen, and from 1995-1998 I was a literacy volunteer. I'm now mentoring a terrific little girl named Kadejah." Mark and I deliberately chose Ithaca, New York as the place we wanted to live. Ithaca, which was voted “Most Enlightened City” by Utne Reader in 1998, is extremely eclectic even while sometimes being maddeningly politically correct. (My standard joke about Ithaca is that when you move here, the Welcome Wagon brings you tofu and Birkenstocks. As you might imagine, I often find myself wanting to parade down the street eating a hamburger while wearing a fur coat, just to see what happens.) Not only is it close enough to NYC that we can travel there by car if we need to, but it has lots of natural beauty, which is great since we like to hike and bike. There’s also a vibrant cultural life here in town, thanks to Cornell University. I love learning new things, and taking classes. (Another thing Cornell is good for). Now I’m taking acting lessons. It’s a blast.

The oldest child of a high school English teacher, I was six when I wrote my first “book”, a Peanuts parody. In addition to penning bad, maudlin poetry in junior high school (“Alone, all alone/I am but a piece of torn cardboard /Flapping blindly in the wind”)and serving as the Arts Editor on my high school newspaper, I was also the Arts Editor at my college newspaper at the University of New York at Buffalo, where I earned my BA in English in 1985. While writing for the student paper, I also sold my first freelance magazine article and won a city wide play writing contest. The play, Spin Cycle, about two lonely people at a laundromat, was subsequently performed in a theater space in downtown Buffalo.

After graduating college, I worked at a series of trade magazines before landing a job at Soap Opera Digest. It was a hoot working in a place where you got to watch TV all afternoon, but I longed to branch out, and after two years, left to begin freelancing full time. Over the course of my twelve year freelance career, my work appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Seventeen, YM, McCall’s, Fitness, New Woman, Bride’s, Bridal Guide, Inside Sports, Woman’s World, Modern Maturity, Islands, Newsday, and the New York Times. In 1998, my first non fiction book was published: Investing for Retirement (Avon). I also contributed to Lifescripts for Managers, Lifescripts for Employees, and Lifescripts for the Self Employed. (MacMillan, 1999).

Tired of pounding out magazine articles for little pay, I decided to prove I was completely insane by bringing in no money at all, and attempting to write a romance novel. BODY CHECK was published in 2003, followed by FAIR PLAY in 2004, TOTAL RUSH in 2005, The PENALTY BOX in 2006, and CHASING STANLEY in 2007. My latest book, JUST A TASTE, came out in January, 2008. Look for another book next November, too....

• I’ve had the same best friend since I was ten. Her name is Jane and she’s my rock.
• The only sport I can stand watching is ice hockey.
• I do yoga three times a week.
• I do eat meat.
• My favorite artists are Frida Kahlo, Man Ray, and Edward Burne Jones.
• My favorite writers are Nora Roberts, Susan Elizabeth Philips, Joyce Carol Oates, Fay Weldon, Maureen Howard, Salman Rushdie, Edna O’Brien, and David Sedaris.
• My desert island disk would be Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks”.
• I’d like to learn to rollerblade, read tarot cards, and play the guitar.
• I’m a pretty fab Aunt. (Just ask my nieces Aine and Sinead).
• I love the beach, especially in winter when no one else is there.
• I adore silver jewelry.
• I’m a kick ass cook.
• Purple is my favorite color.
• I believe Elvis is dead.
• My personal motto is one coined by Sir Winston Churchill: “Never give in—never, never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”