I grew up in a small, Norman Rockwell-esque town in Ohio. A place where kids played outside in the summer, often not returning home until the streetlights came on. You went to streams to catch crawdads, you hiked farmers fields to find abandoned apple orchards, you knew all the neighborhood kids and their parents knew you. It was an idyllic time, where neighbors were 'second' parents, and bad people only existed in scary movies.

I first started writing poetry as a pre-teen. Angst with a large side of hope was my alter ego. I loved old movies…Madam X, African Queen, Casablanca, any movie that had a tragic circumstance that was overcome by grit and love. From there, two English teachers in high school were instrumental to my becoming a writer. Miss Margaret Welty and Mr. Donald Stefan. Loved them, and will be eternally grateful for their kind attention and encouragement.

My On Higher Ground series is a fictional account of five friends coming of age in the late sixties and early seventies. I am a part of this Woodstock generation, and we embraced our new found freedoms with a grand sense of adventure and purpose. It was a thrilling time to be young. At 18, it was definitely a 'woohoo' moment. It's the summer of '69. Pot, free love, trust no one over 30, flower power, make love not war, civil rights, sexual exploration. An extraordinary time of innocence when all things were possible. Everyone was on the same page. Then, something happens. Things begin to change, and the beautiful innocent lightness of being we all were floating in begins to darken and deepen, and evil hides in the depths.