Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in the “east bay” region of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, and although I've spent the last thirty years in Reno, Nevada, I still work a lot in the east bay. One of the ways the east bay has influenced my writing includes its diverse population. In The Birthright Series: The Cage, The Bar and The Lamb, a multi-ethnic cast of characters is central to the development of the story. People ask me about that and I say, "That is the world I live and work in, so that is the world I write about." Of course, when I write ethnic characters, I ask my friends from that ethnicity to give me feedback, and I often have to make changes based on their feedback.
Reno is featured as a setting in all of my current books as I am most familiar with it. And, I was born in Idaho and spent many wonderful days on my Grandma's farm, which is the setting in The Finding Home Series.
When did you first start writing?
My early career was in story-telling. I used to charge neighborhood kids a nickel to come see the plays I'd written. I was five years old. From there I went into middle and high school drama and even majored in Theater in College. But, community theater is very time consuming and I'd always written on the side. I decided to write more seriously five years ago, and now I’ve published four books; the fifth is with my editor.
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