photo: John Kimpel

I've been writing since I first learned to hold a pencil. My first published work, a parody of a nursery rhyme, appeared in Jack and Jill magazine when I was in first grade.

In college I majored in English lit and minored in journalism. Had I been independently wealthy, I might have gone on to learn Anglo-Saxon and get a masters in very, very early English literature, but I had a loan to pay off, so after graduation I worked for a business textbook publisher, then as a newspaper reporter. Somewhere in there I acquired lots of art history credits in night school, and a fondness for antiques, ceramics, fine photography, and really good food. I also discovered I had a talent for explaining complicated ideas and processes in everyday language.

Eventually I moved to Milwaukee to chase a guy (I caught him, too; we've been married nearly 30 years) and took a job as managing editor for a national association. Around this time I started to write non-fiction books that, well, explain complicated ideas and processes in everyday language.

When my day job moved out of Wisconsin in 1994, I declined the opportunity to relocate and moved into full-time freelancing. I've never looked back.

I enjoy the variety. One week I'll edit a book-length manuscript. The next, I'll work on a series of smaller jobs: write a speech for a CEO, interview a business owner for a trade magazine, edit market research, proof a menu for a neighborhood cafe, write a book review.

In between, I read, garden, feed and transport my two wonderful teenage sons, and hike segments of Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail. Lately I've returned to working on my own creative projects as well.