[Note: This page was written in May of 2016. I contracted covid-19 in February 2020 and have been living with Long Covid ever since. I have not been able to update this page due to fatigue, etc. Thx.]

I am a writer of historical fiction — historical fiction from a woman’s perspective.  Women, especially in the Classics, have long been underrepresented and shown to be weak, vulnerable, and often signified the darker side of humanity.  Great Classical writers like Homer and Euripides showed women to be sorceresses and weaklings, more apt to swoon or cast wicked spells upon men than to stand upright and face what the Fates and gods placed before them. It is my goal as a writer to show women in all their strength and fullness of character.  I wish to illustrate their power and their vulnerability, and their ability to love, but also their ability to fight — for home, for family, for themselves.

My first novel, Companion of the Ash, is set for release by Spider Road Press in December 2018.  The novel tells the story of the Trojan hero Hector’s wife Andromache following her husband’s death at the hands of Achilles and the sack of Troy.

With all due respect to Homer and Euripides, Andromache is a rather pathetic figure in Classical literature, tending to spend much of her time weeping and carrying on.  She has similarly been portrayed in modern popular media, including in Wolfgang Petersen’s film Troy where she was played by a very weepy Saffron Burrows.  However, I chose to show her as a strong, self-assured woman who met her fate with her head held high.  I think it is only fair to the character that after thousands of years of being shown as the weakling, she for once gets to stand up and be strong.

In addition to my forthcoming novel, two of my flash fiction pieces, Brigida and Pleiku, 1969, were published in Spider Road Press’s anthology Approaching Footsteps last year.  Approaching Footsteps can be purchased at Spider Road Press or Amazon.

I am an avid traveler, having been to Ecuador (where I swam with sea lions in the Galapagos), Peru (where I went sandboarding in the Atacama desert and flew over the Nazca Lines), Mexico (where I swam with whale sharks and learned to love a truly good quesadilla), Botswana (where I was charged by an elephant and was taught how to dig up scorpions by a member of the San Bushman tribe), Zambia (where I got up close and almost personal with a beautiful endangered rhino), and I spent a year living on the outskirts of the Peak District in the UK. Here is a post by Susan Portnoy that I particularly enjoy about travel.

I have a master’s degree in social studies education, a bachelor’s degree in geography and history, and (quite incongruously), an associate’s degree in veterinary science. I am a certified copy editor and English as a Second Language instructor, and work with international students on the editing and polishing of their academic work.

I live in suburban Massachusetts with three rescue dogs (one from Tennessee and two Satos from Puerto Rico) and three shelter cats.

I hope you enjoy my blog :).