Creating new worlds - what fun we have as writers! That fun began for me in the dark ages of fifth grade when I received third place in a Colorado statewide essay contest sponsored by the DAR. With my picture in the paper and a beautiful bronze medal in my jewelry box, the years passed and my passion for reading increased. And then I started writing but it wasn't until the 1990s that I decided to write a novel. Inspired by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, I sought to create a magical world of heroes and honor and love. I didn't know how poor my manuscript was though, until I re-read it a few years ago. Terrible writing but a decent plot and even today, I care about those characters. As bad as it was (and is) that first manuscript served a great purpose. I had actually written a book! I did it! What a feeling of accomplishment!

In a lifelong learning class on How to Get Published, the wise instructor advised us to join a critique group or start one with other class members. Six of us started that group and two of us from the original six remain together still, with others joining over the years. I remember the terror I experienced when my dear friend Laura, a stranger at the time, had to pry my death grip from the first manuscript pages I submitted for critique. With these six writers, and my friends in the second critique group I joined, I have learned and laughed and cried, and occasionally stopped to have a party. Okay, maybe quite a few parties. Now, with the publication of Soliloquy in 2009, and Fogg in the Cockpit due out in 2011, my writing continues. Yes, it is hard sometimes. Patience is a prerequisite as is a willingness to learn and listen and change and observe. But the passion remains, waiting to emerge in a fraction of a second, as a new idea, character, or world peeks above the horizon, ready to sweep me away to another time or place.

The past few years found me branching out into non-fiction as my husband Richard and I co-authored a book dear to our hearts. Fogg in the Cockpit augments his father's daily World War II diary, written when Howard Fogg flew P-47s and P-51s out of England. I am humbled by what I have learned about the War and honored to have been given the opportunity to share that year of Howard Fogg's life. Casemate Publishers will release Fogg in the Cockpit in May 2011.

Richard and I also collaborated on a screenplay and I've collaborated on several others with my friend Karen Albright Lin. Throw in an in-progress narrative non-fiction with Bob West and about a half-dozen other ideas for novels, well, I need to get busy! After all, I have a number of worlds to visit. Hope to see you on the journey!