When I was born in June of 1961, not only was my sun sign in Gemini, so was the moon and Gemini’s ruling planet, Mercury. None of my homies were into astrology at the time, so I didn’t realize I was doomed. Blissfully ignorant, I turned my innate ADD and penchant for taking mechanical objects apart into a varied and interesting career path with more twists than the Burma Road.
Always a bit arty, I first tried my hand at illustration, doing my first paid freelance job at 14. (Thanks, Dad.) Since art directors weren’t exactly beating down the door, I also got a minimum wage job. While trying to avoid having to ask, “Do you want fries with that?” I served as a reporter and layout editor for my high school newspaper.
Following high school graduation, I decided I was sick of school. Over the next few years, I worked several different jobs including picture framer, auto mechanic, electronics salesperson, secretary and draftsperson for a land surveyor, and deputy sheriff in undercover narcotics. Yes, really.
Tired of putting my life at risk for six bucks an hour, I decided to attend the University of Wisconsin system as an art student. Quickly realizing that was the fast lane to starvation and chronic fashion faux pas, I left college in 1981. Taking a job as a production artist at a newspaper group in a Milwaukee suburb, I later moved to a small weekly on the city’s south side and freelanced with a few Milwaukee area ad agencies and design studios. Through it all, I continued to write ad copy and the occasional feature story for a few newspapers.
With a few years as a freelance graphic designer under my belt, in 1990 I became the art director for NorthWord Press, a small nature book publisher (now defunct) in Wisconsin’s Great Northwoods. I went back out on my own when the company moved away from books toward producing music cassettes, CDs and videos, but I never got books out of my system. In fact, I wrote my first book, Wisconsin: The Way Were Were, 1845-1945 for Heartland Press, a NorthWord imprint, right after I left. That book came out in 1993 and I was hooked forever. I knew I’d always be an author in one form or another.
My second book, Rural America: A Pictorial Folk Memory was published in 1995 by Willow Creek Press, and won an award from the MidAmerica Publishers Association. I did a small tour of New England and the MidAtlantic region in support of it, and realized how much I missed the East Coast. I stayed in Wisconsin long enough to see the Green Bay Packers win the Super Bowl in February, 1997. The next day, I drove my loaded moving van back to my much-missed, beloved home state of Pennsylvania.
I settled in Bucks County, where I mainly freelanced as a graphic designer until realizing I was competing with every high school kid who had a computer and a desktop publishing program. By June 2001, I’d become thoroughly disenchanted with the ad agency life. I resigned my position as president of a small agency in Lambertville, New Jersey and again struck out on my own. This time, though, I left graphics behind to finally follow the path I realized I’d always been on…that of a writer.
That was 15 years ago. Now I split my time between freelance writing for magazines and books, consulting with small and micro-businesses on their marketing needs, and publishing books. I’ve written another book, Devastation on the Delaware: Stories and Images of the Deadly Flood of 1955, published in 2005 and selling more than 6,500 copies to date. I also curated an anthology with one of my pieces in it, Almost Perfect: Disabled Pets and the People Who Love Them.
I’m now working on bringing my first two books out in paperback, and am also writing my first novel, Lonely Cottage Road. I’m also working on The Storm Diaries, a series of novels about the adventures of a forensic meteorologist, her dog, and their best friend.
Ever unable to focus too long on any one thing, I also dabble in drawing, painting, teaching, and metal detecting. In fact, my most recent nonfiction work is a guidebook for newbie detectorists, METAL DETECTING FOR BEGINNERS: 101 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started.
I’m frequently tired…but never bored.
2 replies on “About the Author”
Just want to leave you a note having discovered you while searching the 1955 Delaware floods. There was a video you did several years ago in which you said that you felt that people had not learned their lesson from those days. So true that is as once again there is extreme flooding and yet the newspeople make no reference to that flood, only later flooding. Why is it that people who live in the flood plain are surprised when it floods. I am going search out your book to read.
[…] Here’s a guest blog post I did on my local writers’ group website, about bringing out an old hardcover title in paperback once you regain your copyright as the author. […]