About

I grew up in a small town in Canada with a single mom. I moved to the United States in the late 90s to work for a global company, and now reside in the Southern USA with my family.

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I've been a singer/songwriter since grade school and was involved in theatre group productions in middle school and high school. (And a half dozen in the past decade)

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Academics came easily to me throughout high school; however, in ninth grade, I struggled with typing—I almost failed a mandatory first-year typing class! At the time, I told myself it was because I was new at it and we never had a computer at home. But this wasn't the case. When I got to university, I was told that writing my papers in cursive was not permitted and typing was mandatory for all my course papers. 

 

After my first year, I was beyond frustrated and embarrassed. No matter how hard I tried, my fingers could not learn the keys on the keyboard without making massive errors. (I might have single-handedly kept the correction fluid industry afloat that year!) I left the University in tears most days. I had no idea that I was dyslexic. I was so distraught that I chose not to return with a full scholarship to major in their theatre arts program. Instead, I took a corporate job a friend had told me about.

 

Working for corporations for years, then as a consultant, hiring and training people, setting up new departments, it became clear that I could spot the 'why' behind bottlenecks at companies, and I preferred the complex challenges that require common-sense thinking (dyslexic) over rule-based, logical thinking. And I experienced the positives when these two minds work together... Great discoveries occurred, which gave me a new story idea.

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When COVID-19 hit in 2020, we were stuck inside like everyone else. My husband encouraged me to write down my vivid dreams. I was worried, as they can be out of the box and pretty crazy, and knowing my past issues with typing, I was initially apprehensive. To my surprise, after typing my first novel with my two index fingers quickly, I haven't stopped typing. I'm amazed at how fast I can type with two index fingers, and with fewer mistakes than in my university days!

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My first novel was a romance, then an amateur sleuth two-book whodunit series. And I set those aside when my friend asked me in 2021 if I'd go to Thrillerfest with her in 2022.

 

I took the first chapters of a new story I had started and began writing a dark psychological thriller that became a four-book saga. My pet peeve is secrets, so I added one secret after another and hid Easter eggs throughout what is now my debut novel, Viola Ted.​

 

I prefer truth over polished fiction. To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, I prefer living people, not characters, to show human flaws. We all have them. It's important to me to highlight the importance of nature and our human connection to it, and how history repeats itself under the same cultural and societal pressures that have driven humanity's rise and fall for centuries.

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I write visually, cinematically, blocking scenes and writing down camera angles, as I translate my stories to the page. I've been taking film directing courses since 2024, filming proof-of-concept shorts and working with local filmmakers, and not only do I love it, but I also feel like I've come full circle in the arts that inspired me as a child.

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​I'm grateful to my family and to every mentor and stranger who has impacted my journey, and I'm sincerely thrilled to be writing and directing.​ I look forward to sharing my fictionalized stories with you on the page and on the screen!

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P.S. 

For those of you who wish to write, whether you're dyslexic or not, write, paint, draw, sculpt, sing, perform, build, create, if that's what you love to do.  All forms of story connect us, and usually, the most important connection we gain through our creativity is with ourselves.

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"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." William Shakespeare.