My first foray into publication...

 

was as a fourth grade runner-up in my school's Young Authors contest. I'd submitted a poetry anthology but found my true calling in prose during sixth grade, when my gripping coming-of-age tale won first place and went straight to press (i.e., the faculty lounge Xerox machine). For one day, I tasted greatness as Book-n-Me went on a whirlwind, schoolwide publicity tour. After that, I suppose my sage eleven years of age deemed it wise to go out on top; perhaps, yes, it was better to write hard and die young as an author. I just don't know. But it would be twenty years before I wrote another novel.

 

Meanwhile, I've grown up (sort of) as a lover of books, Buffy, travel, and tarot. I'm an old soul with a penchant for the past and paranormal, and am probably the most social recluse you could ever meet. Dividing my time between Chicago and London, I'm also enchanted by the old buildings in these cities——their histories, their people, their things that go bump in the night. My writing loves to creep inside those interiors, spelunking through dimensions of time, love, and the soul.