You could say I was a writer before I knew the alphabet. One day, long before I read “Dick and Jane,” I grabbed a pencil from my father’s desk and scribbled in every book on the lowest shelf of his library. He wasn’t happy. But he would have been if he knew it was the beginning of my writing career.
In elementary school, I finagled myself into my teacher’s good graces by writing a poem titled, “I Hate to Sit,” to explain why I always popped out of my seat. In college when I was failing public speaking, I wrote a paper on Greek orators and passed the course.
As an adult, I dreamed of becoming a professional writer and set out to make my dream come true. I became a freelance writer, first for a magazine and then for a newspaper in Westchester County, N.Y. And then on one of the happiest days of my life, I was hired as a staff writer for what was then called the Westchester Rockland Newspapers. I was a general assignment feature writer for the next twenty years.
I began “Catwalk Killer” while I was still at the newspaper. I was waiting for a fashion show to begin when I wondered what would happen if there was a murder on the runway.
I accepted an early-retirement buyout — I had to — and for the next seven years, I was an adjunct professor in the Mass Communications Department at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y. At the same time, I was writing fiction. Since my protagonist, Sleuthenista Bonnie Nash, wasn’t ready for retirement, I wrote three sequels — “Stone Cold Chic,” “Mannequin Murders,” and “Knocked Off” — and they became the “Who-Done-It? Who-Wore-It?” Series.
I also wrote five other novels and two children’s books. I’m now working on a young adult novel with the help of Annie, Charlie and Sidney — my grandchildren and the best editors. I grew up in New Rochelle, NY, and went to college and graduate school at NYU and Columbia. I now live across the country in Los Altos, California. I used to be three thousand miles from my grandchildren. I am now only three hundred steps away.
