The history of the American West is in my blood. My grandfather was born in Oklahoma Territory and spent his childhood moving west. His family ended up on a farm in the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula. Later, he cleared the forested land that would became the farm where I was raised. After he died, I inherited a collection of first-hand accounts of the 19th century Pacific Northwest.

When I moved to New Mexico as an adult, those reminiscences and my love of history went with me. In the Southwest, my interest expanded to include the many small towns, pueblos, and land grants I encountered during my 20-plus years as a public servant. Wherever I went in New Mexico, I was exposed to its tri-cultural (Native, Hispanic, and Anglo) experience and saw how much its past influenced the present.

After I retired, I began to explore New Mexico’s history more deeply, honing the research skills I’d developed while obtaining two Masters of Arts degrees. The result is my Old New Mexico fiction—deeply researched, firmly and accurately set in the past, and brimming with historical characters.

My fiction and poetry reflect my fascination with the way people justify the choices they make and my conviction that the choices we make today aren’t fundamentally different from those people were making hundreds, even thousands, of years ago.

I’ve been publishing fiction and poetry since 1975. (I’m not old–I just started young!) Growing up in foothills of the Olympic Mountains in the log cabin my grandfather built and my father was born in led naturally to an interest in history and historical fiction. When I retired to the mountains of northern New Mexico, writing historical fiction set there was a logical result.

Before turning to historical fiction full time, I wrote Crown of Laurel, a novel set in Seattle in the recession of the early 1980’s. I hold a B.S. in Bible Education from Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. This background informs my poetry collections Mary at the Cross: Voices from the New Testament and And Then Moses Was There: Voices from the Old Testament.

In the mid-1980’s, my husband and I suffered the loss of our first child in the fifth month of pregnancy. My poetry collection But Still My Child came out of that period and is designed to help others deal with the pain of miscarriage.

I hold M.A.’s in Communication and in English Literature from the University of New Mexico. Most days, you’ll find me researching New Mexico history in the 1800’s and writing furiously. I post short pieces about what I discover on my site, as well as some short fiction. I hope you’ll sign up for those posts and for announcements about my books.

P.S. All material on this site is covered by copyright law. If you are interested in reproducing or using my stories in some other way, please do not hesitate to contact me for permission.