Writing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mother was a wonderful writer and a member of Romance Writers of America. I attended meetings with her, and she paid for me to participate in writing events even as a child. There were retreats and workshops, too, but some of my favorite conversations happened between the two of us as we talked about our writing and stories. As an awkward teenager, I wrote plenty of short stories and poetry.

My working life eventually took me into transcription for two police departments and work as an IP Relay Operator for MCI. When health issues led me to work from home, I began doing transcription in 2006. Two years later, I bought my first laptop and decided it ought to help pay for itself. That decision led me into professional nonfiction writing.

Over the years, I wrote thousands of paid articles, covering practical how-to subjects and general information. Research became a huge part of my working life, and I grew accustomed to spending long stretches at the keyboard. I later moved into editing and proofreading, continuing to work closely with words from a different perspective.

Writing and research also took my family abroad. A company I worked for relocated us to Cairo, Egypt. From there, we moved to Frankfurt, Germany, then Dublin, Ireland, and eventually Dromod, a village in County Leitrim. We returned to the United States in 2014, landing at O’Hare International Airport on my birthday. I settled back in Wisconsin, where I had grown up, before relocating to Oregon in 2018.

​

Dark Knight traveled through some of those years with me. I began writing it in 2007, reached about forty pages, and set it aside. While living in Germany in 2010–2011, I picked it up again and finished the manuscript over roughly two and a half months. All those years of article writing had helped me develop the discipline to sit down and keep writing.

​

Finishing the manuscript was only the beginning. I spent years pursuing traditional publication and worked with an agent for a couple of years, but we weren’t able to find the book a publishing home. For a while, I stepped away from fiction.

​

Eventually, I started writing again and realized how many stories and ideas I still wanted to explore. I decided to self-publish and give those books a chance to reach readers. And here we are.

​

These days, I organize my books a chapter at a time. A clear plan, years of research experience, and a typing speed of around 120 words per minute help me make the most of the time I have to write. But it all started with a mother who loved writing and made room for her daughter to love it, too.

​