About Me

The best gift I ever got was my first typewriter. I was in the sixth grade, and when Dad gave me that typewriter (with a ribbon that typed in black and red ink!), I was the happiest kid in the world. I was finally a writer.

I needed all the help I could get. I started out against the odds, born with mild cerebral palsy and overcoming most of the symptoms by adulthood thanks to luck, physical therapy, multiple surgeries, eye patches, corrective shoes, and a sense of humor. I fell in love with theatre at twelve years old, caterwauling "Tomorrow" constantly and directing impromptu playground productions where everyone usually died excitingly at the end.

I spent my childhood in a variety of extreme settings and circumstances—from the deep South, to life as a Navy brat, from California, Rhode Island, and Virginia, to Puerto Rico. I crossed the Atlantic Basin in a sailboat with my family at fourteen, and have since edited magazines, worked in a hospital ER, sung jazz in smoky bars, and once ended up as "the agony of defeat" on national news after crashing and burning on the final day of The Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee in 1981. All of these experiences provided a rich foundation for my life as a writer (and for therapy—lots of therapy).

I was a poor kid, but I wanted a Renaissance education. So I attended Florida State University and got my degree in Media Production (with a minor in Theatre), while also training formally in voice and cello, directing short plays, stage managing, and performing all over the US in the Collegium Musicum Early Music ensemble on instruments including recorder, crumhorn, and more. I took classes in art and and music and acting—and stage lighting and directing. I worked at the local student radio and TV stations and basically tried to learn as much as I could.

After college, I worked with small theatre groups and guilds, then joined Pyramid Teleproductions, a studio outside Dallas, followed by Computed Animation Technology. After that, I moved into studio marketing and PR, promoting producers, animators, and post houses worldwide. I also worked as a Managing Editor for Computer Currents Texas (i.e., Texas Computing), spending two years managing writers and publishing dozens of high-tech articles, cover stories, and editorials. Over my career, I've published nearly 1000 articles across the years, including features in Writer's Digest, About.com, Markee Magazine, Media Inc., the Fandomentals, and more, while also publishing short fiction in Terror Tales, Anotherealm, and Fables Magazine.

Plays and Scriptwriting

I got my first agent when I was still in college, for my "save the manatee" drama Callisto's Bay. I began my theatrical career in earnest by workshopping my two-act drama Missing the Comet with the Boca Raton Theatre Guild, then working as a paid scriptwriter in Seattle, Washington. With playwriting partner Kim Ferse, we held a public reading of Angry Annie (contributing additional dialogue and lyrics) with The Playwrights Group (Richard Caliban, Founder) in 2022. I followed that with another solo live Zoom play reading with The Playwrights Group the following year for my full-length drama The Betrayals of Women. In January 2025, two of my short plays, The Great God Zeus in Brooklyn and You Need to Sign for This, were selected by the Revolution Stage Company in Palm Springs, CA for its Second Annual 10-Minute Play Festival and performed live on January 11-12, 2025.

I am a member of the Dramatists Guild, and my latest works include the timely new gaming comedy Aggro, the screwball fairytale Anything But Straw (a comedic twist on the Rumplestiltskin fairytale), and the children's book I Do Not Want to Go Outside. Current works in progress include the full-length play Between the Wish and the Life and my nonfiction memoir entitled 1001 Potential Catastrophes at Sea.

Basically, from that first typewriter in sixth grade, to this very moment, I've never stopped writing—where my goal is to bring together opposing worlds and ideas in intriguing new ways—often with a with a twist of magic, girlpower, and inclusivity.

Ultimately, as a misfit geek who's also disabled, I'm a champion of difference, of those who see the world just a little askew—and who then find something unexpected and new... a little bit of grace.

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you'll check out my work!