ike so many of you, I wrote my first story as an adolescent and dreamed of being a “real writer” someday. However, as a high school English teacher, I long lamented that my passion for teaching left little room for writing. When the seniors in my Advanced Placement English class challenged me to put my money where my mouth is, I completed my first manuscript, a mystery-suspense titled THE WATCHER.

I'd been terrified that I was enamored of the idea of being a writer rather than the writing itself. As I taught my students analytical writing, I noted their struggles, and I wasn't sure I myself was up to scratch. But the moment I composed my first creative line, I was hooked! I never resented one second of my writing time. I moved easily from long-hand drafts and typewriters (yes, typewriters, ugh!!) to my friendly computer. Something about placing my fingers on the keyboard liberated me, like playing piano when one leaps from printed notes to musical strokes without deliberate thought.

Since then, I've never let anything interfere with writing time (except Life, of course!) even though I have to remind my family that I'm working, not daydreaming, when I stare out the window at the stirring California scenery passing from blazing summer to brilliant autumn to rainy winter.

Raised as an army “brat,” I've lived abroad ( Germany ) and across the United States (northern Virginia , Oklahoma , Kentucky , Idaho , Utah ) finally settling in California . Each time I fly east to visit my sister in Virginia or south to my brother in Florida , when the plane dips to indicate my return to home, I remember why my spirit will always reside in northern California , land of the giant redwoods, the rocky Pacific coast, the crystal lakes, the fecund forests. This love for my state prompted me to set both my first and second books in the fictional county of Bigler , California .

I've long thought it is a shame that no California town or county has been named for the man whose journal entry established the date for discovery of gold in 1848. So I named my fictitious site Bigler County to memorialize Henry Bigler and his diary reference to discovering gold in the tailrace of Sutter's Mill at Coloma. Click on Excerpts to read clips from both THE WATCHER and THE AVENGER.