I've been writing practically since I've been reading. People who knew me well knew my biggest dream and biggest fear was writing a whole book. That fear of failure. I had poetry published in my school literary magazine and a funny story in my work professional magazine. I wrote training materials for work and helped friends write their resumes, feeling that was at least writing. I had the beginnings of fantasy stories, mysteries, and love stories all sitting in folders and notebooks. In the summer of 2013 I saw the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge. If you're not familiar with it, the challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The day after Thanksgiving that year, I posted 51,000 words and a complete story was born. It needed a lot of work, but it was there. That story was the bones of Hurricane Season, my debut novel, which will be out in spring 2016. Early in 2014, I heard about a new program through the Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) called the Writing Academy. It's a one year program aimed at new writers or writers who want to improve their skills. I'm proud to be part of the very first graduating class. The Writing Academy was life-changing. I started looking at myself as an author, not just as someone who happens to write. I retired the beginning of 2015. I became a full time writer of stories and finally finished my first book the end of July, 2015. I live in Florida with my partner, a retired police officer, Maya the Yorkie, and Piper the Chihuahua in an honest-to-goodness resort-it says so on the sign out front. When I'm not writing, we love sitting out on the front porch with the "kids" and chatting with neighbors and friends who like to come by and visit. I'm an avid reader of anything that strikes my fancy and I love puzzles - like logic problems, Sudoku or word finds. I also like to take walks, go to flea markets, sketch, and crochet. Okay, I'm also addicted to several TV shows, mostly mysteries and cop shows. Thank goodness for the DVR! I'm very excited about becoming part of the Desert Palm Press family. I have two more books in the pipeline right now, a murder mystery and another romance.