Builder of Cloud Castles, Ideal Worlds, and Alternate Realities
I’ve always been a reader. But it took me a long time to realise that I was a writer, too.
I worked in television, stage, and film for years because that was about storytelling. But I eventually discovered that I like the words themselves, and what words can do, better than I ever liked film-making. When you read, you hear and see the characters in your mind. It gives them a life far beyond a single interpretation recorded in a singular way. That’s the power of imagination.
When I’m not writing, I’m still a reader. I love reading other authors’ works and discovering new writers. I love mysteries, historical fiction, fantasy, thrillers, ghost stories… One day I’m going to write a book that is all of those things! I also love clever criminal lawyers, dogged detectives, indomitable heroines, and unlikely heroes. I’m particularly fond of nuanced characters, people you can get behind even if you don’t admire everything about them. I love to try to figure out what motivates them.
I’m not as fond of dystopian worlds, science fiction, or romance as genres, but I’m fully capable of putting elements of them into another type of story. I do like to mix things up!
Another thing I adore is really old places. There’s an energy about them that I love. Not that kind of NYC-never-ceasing-rhythmic energy (although that definitley has its attraction), but the kind of energy that has inhabited a place for centuries. It makes me feel connected.
I don’t consider myself a historian. That is a special discipline. Although I’m a stickler for accuracy, I’m merely an interpreter of history. I try to make history accessible to people. I’d like to think that’s my super-power.
Like Nell, the heroine of the Eleanor Anson trilogy, I’ve recreated myself more than once. I’ve been a project manager, a designer, a living-history interpreter, a costumer, a researcher, and a museum guide. Someone recently called me a dilettante. Fine. I embrace my nature! All of that informs what I do now, so as far as I’m concerned, none of it was a waste of time.
I live in Massachusetts with my husband, two teenage boys, a pair of pirate cats, a goofy Labrador, and a pet Roomba.
(This adorable little character belongs to someone else.)