This is a picture of me

(taken by the fabulous Wheaton Mahoney):

I was born at French Hospital in New York in 1967

(it converted to condo in 1978):

Then I went to grade school on Long Island.

 My favorite teacher smelled of mint chewing gum and
Halston perfume and wore a navy blue Vacarro turtleneck.

Then I went to middle school in New York City for a couple of years.

The nuns, the architecture, the mischief.

Then I went to boarding school.

Four years of excellent educational opportunity foolishly taken for granted.
Oh, what I would give today to read Austen, Twain, Dickens, Chaucer, Eliot, Conrad, Steinbeck, and Shakespeare
while moping around in a faux-sheepskin collared jean jacket.

Then I went to university.

Four more years of excellent educational opportunity, not wasted exactly,
but certainly not plumbed; highlights included Garry Wills telling me my final project was "jejune"
...and then having to go look it up.

Then I waited tables in Nantucket and traveled to Thailand, India, Nepal, China, UK, and Greece.

My husband says I always have to throw in that I went "backpacking in Nepal"
and I say he always has to throw in that he "grew up on a farm."

Then I worked in a variety of interesting and not-so-interesting places and moved around a lot,
and got married, and moved around some more. Eventually, we moved to London (for nearly four years)
and then back to Chicago and now Florida for lo these many years.

Details about employers, emotional entanglements, and life's little trials may or may not be forthcoming.

In any case, all of the above led to the fiction writing. 

Which is what this IS all about.

I write novels. I think about writing novels. I plot novels. I read (way too many) novels.
This is a relatively late-in-life development, especially when I read about authors who wrote their first book in college.
I did not do that. I am not saying I'm Grandma Moses or anything, but I wrote my first manuscript from 2004-2006,
then let it stew for a while (that's code for 'had another baby').

In 2010, I started writing in earnest. I aim to write three full-length novels per year,
with the occasional novella or other project thrown in to keep things lively.

So far so good.