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I grew up in Chicago, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois and Northwestern University on a four year Illinois State Scholarship. I majored in English and held high school teaching certificates in Illinois and Florida. I saw the advent of psychological programs in our schools, and the departure from teaching basics such as reading, writing, arithmetic and social studies, as confusing and ineffective. Despite a love of working with young teenagers, this troubled me, and in 1976, I stopped teaching and moved to Florida for three years.

After being offered a job in southern California in 1979 I moved close to the Pacific Ocean where I've lived for almost twenty years. I later moved to the San Francisco area for a year, with David, a software design engineer, and we were married in August of 1999 and returned to southern California, close to the ocean. I have a son and two daughters, and five adored grandchildren. My children and husband have been wonderfully supportive of all of my efforts to publish my heartfelt first novel, In the Name of Help.

From the time I was eleven I remember always writing something: stories, descriptions, journals or articles for the Roosevelt high school paper. A few years ago, I won honorable mention in the Writers' Digest Contest with a non-fiction story about my younger daughter's incredible recovery from a serious car accident.

But I never felt compelled to write with the goal of publication, until I became motivated to tell the story, In the Name of Help.

I feel strongly that there are things in our society that are wrong, incorrect and even evil. But these cannot be changed until we first become aware of them. Once we recognize that they are there, and we become willing to take some responsibility for their existence, then we can become powerful once again, and we can right the wrongs.

I enjoy novels from which I learn something; knowledge of another time or place, insight into a particular personality, or new awareness of an unknown issue; and that's what I hope my readers will find in this book and in my future novels. I welcome communication from my readers.