I fell in love with words when I was a little girl (and yes I was short once) and discovered the joy of reading and hanging out with Nancy Drew. By the beginning of eighth grade I had read every book in St. Joseph's Grade School library and knew I was going to be a writer. The journey has been almost as good as The Bungalow Mystery. In my small hometown in Wisconsin I started out my literary career by working on a tomato farm and then sauntered through a variety of jobs the next 25 years after I received a degree in journalism which would stagger a fast runner -- professional Girl Scout, waitress, bartender, journalist, bureau chief, columnist, window washer, factory worker, bowling alley attendant and once, honest, I crawled on my belly through a Utah mountain field to harvest night crawlers. Now I write. I write fulltime because I never, not once, let go of the dream I had to do this. To put all my manic words into sentences and then string the sentences into paragraphs so that they could become chapters and then a book. My fourth novel, Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral will be released by my wonderful publisher, Bantam Dell in January. My first two novels, The Elegant Gathering of White Snows and Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn, have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the United States and continue to set women's hearts on fire. The Sunday List of Dreams, my fourth novel, will be in your hands in January of 2007. My first book, Run, Bambi, Run, a true crime story, was published in hardcover by Birch Lane press and in soft cover by Penguin books. A regional bestseller, Run, Bambi, Run was optioned for a movie and was printed in three foreign countries. The second book, which took ten years to get published by the way, The Birth Order Effect - How to Better Understand Yourself and Others, was published by Adams Media and discusses the psychological aspects of birth order. In the middle of all this I've worked undercover as a journalist, been to Bosnia, won some wonderful awards, taught at two universities, learned how to ride a motorcycle, gained 25 pounds, laughed as often as possible, drank lots of wine and oh yes -- I had two babies who are now on the verge of adulthood. My activist's heart will not let me sleep and I continue to write two nationally syndicated columns each week -- for DBR Media, Inc. and a regionally syndicated column in southeastern Wisconsin for Community Newspapers. My writing empire is based in Wisconsin where I live with the two constantly hungry teenagers and my ever-patient partner, and where the whole mess of us attend soccer games, choir concerts, tuba recitals, chess matches, student debates, drivers ed classes, more soccer games, literary events and whatever else is written down in the very thick schedule book. But mostly I write and then I take a break to travel to events and book signings and conferences to talk about writing. How cool is that? And listen -- I am just getting cranked up here. So go buy a Radish book and let me know what you think. By the way -- Nancy Drew lives and I know where.
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