I wanted to be a veterinarian.

As a child growing up in the 1970s in Maryland, I'd been writing stories about animals, and in middle 
school my animal husbandry class suggested I had the knack. Then we had to give vaccines to the 
bunnies and I nearly fainted.

"What do you like to do?" Mom asked. "Write" was my only answer; I'd been doing that since I was eight, 
telling tales about my stuffed animals. So she told me a living could be made as a journalist, and showed 
me local newscaster Jim Vance looking sleek in Washingtonian Magazine.

Late nights smoothing down waxed copy for the high school paper gave way to much of the same at Boston 
University's Daily Free Press, and then came the real world. I freelanced, I wrote fiction, I freelanced, 
I wrote fan fiction, I freelanced, and finally I landed a full-time job in New York, covering soap operas.

This never fails to elicit a giggle, but soaps are the core of all storytelling, from oral histories to Dickens 
to "General Hospital," we're all entranced by the continuing melodramatic story arc. After five 
years of craziness -- not all of it on the screen -- it was time to jump ship for another kind of Hollywood, 
the kind where they actually returned your phone calls. My tenure with The Hollywood Reporter is 
truly the most fun I've ever had on a job.

Meanwhile, I continue to write fiction -- though the stories are about real people now. Finding an audience 
isn't so hard, but finding an agent or an editor who thinks they can sell what I'm putting out -- that's been 
the real challenge. Meanwhile, the words and the ideas keep coming.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to any feedback you may have.