In my family we’ve often said that ink is in our blood.

My dad began working as a typesetter for a newspaper while he was in high school, then went on to be an educator in offset printing. I spent one summer during high school working with him in the shop and to this day, when I smell a product that has been printed on an offset press, I remember my dad. Now, I don’t know if his capabilities as a typesetter has anything to do with my ability to read upside down and backwards or not, but it’s a fun skill to have.

While ink in my dad’s blood was the ink on the press, for my sisters and I, it was the printed words that ran in our veins. One of my sisters is a grammar aficionado, another sister likes to read the dictionary for fun, and I write stories.

I’ve enjoyed a good story as far back as I can remember. From the library we went to while growing up – I can still almost smell the library I went to as a child – to the library in my elementary school, checking out books was a memorable part of my childhood.

It was during my elementary years when I began making up stories in my head. I loved being inside those stories whether those were “spin offs” from a television show or book, or the shared visions for a tale that I, along with my sister and a friend of ours acted out during after school hours.

In junior high, I journaled my teenage angst through poetry and prayers to God. These writings filled the pages through college, till somewhere in my post collegiate days, my writing morphed into devotionals and articles, though they never saw the light of day in any publication.

After graduation, while working as a nanny I read many children’s books to my charges and then during my first year of marriage, in my late 20s, children’s stories began dropping in my head. For the next several years my energy switched between writing articles and children’s stories. I became part of a writer’s group and the dream that my writing could someday be published took root.

In the middle of sharing a children’s story with my writer’s group, one of the members asked for more details. Of course, writing for kids, you don’t have to include every ounce of description since there will be pictures, so in my mind, adding details would make it a novel. I didn’t think I could write the number of words needed to create one, but I thought, why not try?! That was the birth of my first novel, and though I shared it on my blog one chapter at a time, it never found its way to the printed page.

In 2010, another story landed in my heart, and I wrote Where Hope Starts, the first book in my Applewood Hill Series. In 2011, I attended my first writers conference, and the editor of a small publishing house liked my pitch. I was offered a contract and my first book, Where Hope Starts, was first published in 2013 and then republished with Mosaic in 2021.

In 2018, I was invited to join the Mosaic Collection. Since that time, I’ve released 4 novels, including the Applewood Hill series and have contributed stories to 6 anthologies under the Mosiac banner.

My heart in writing is that every story I write will showcase the redemptive and transformative work of God and inspire hope in anyone who reads one of my books.