I grew up on a non-working farm in northeastern Ohio…a few miles from the shores of Lake Erie. Arcola Creek runs through the heart of the property. Along with my mother and maternal grandparents, I lived in the farm’s vintage house built by a Civil War general.

My environs always seemed to welcome—even encourage—my constant scrawling that filled one school notebook after another. But then, I suspect the farm honored storytelling. After all, it had its own tales to tell, fed by rumors of haunted apparitions floating around the property.

“Rear View Of The Dock Road Farm,” painted by my grandmother, Mabel Kinzel

One such wraith had been a horse breeder who, at the beginning of the 20th Century, broke her neck after she fell from her favorite stallion behind the barn. The fact that her spirit hung out in the patch of field that had been the horse paddock, made it a perfect place to play “ghosts” with the neighbor kids. Then there were the specters hovering over the front porch, psychic echoes of a certain regrettable incident at the reunion of the general’s Civil War comrades-in-arms. Whether that colonel’s drunken ranting really did spur his once-aide-de-camp to shoot him dead on the porch, or whether the whole episode was a tragic accident, I’ll never know. But I do know it was grist for the mill of my active imagination.

Did the richness of those stories nourish my writing? Probably more than I knew at the time. And so did a progression of brilliant English teachers who marched across my school years. They nurtured and disciplined my prose so that by the time I hit Northwestern University for my undergraduate years, I could spin a fair yarn.

My writing took a backseat during the time spent in Evanston, Illinois. It was the early seventies and war protests, political debates, and late hours in the sorority house (Alpha Phi), consuming illicit red wine and potato chips stolen from the kitchen took priority. Not to mention heady adventures with my future husband, Marc. I did manage to pay attention to school just enough to obtain a communications degree.

My first job out of college was heady, as well. In the mid-seventies, Chicago’s WLS Radio was the major market place to be if you were a communications nerd. Snarky disc  jockeys with their snappy repartee made my traffic/continuity writing job a constant source of entertainment. Their antics reached a zenith when the legendary morning drive guy tried to slip my mother an illegal substance in the middle of my wedding reception…at the elegant Drake Hotel, no less.

After my work stint at WLS Radio ended, I remained in Chicago to handle production for a public service television series and write public relations copy at a consulting firm. Restless, I decided to shake up my career and obtained a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. From there, I worked as a writer for neighborhood community groups, produced position papers for an interstate planning organization, and finally landed at O’Hare Associates, where I turned out technical reports for the airlines during O’Hare Airport’s expansion in the mid-eighties.

You’ve probably noticed a trend in all those jobs. I was always writing…something or other. Eventually, I realized I was bored “penning” stuff for causes and projects that had nothing to do with my interests. And that’s when I left behind the traditional job market and began creating fiction….short stories, poetry, novels. (Samples are included in the “Free Writings” section of the website.) I also began freelancing as a book editor.

In the meantime, Marc and I moved to Colorado, first living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains southwest of Denver, then relocating to Littleton, where we now reside with our rescue schnauzer/pug, Petey.

As for my writing… While I’ve released books under an array of pennames with various publishers, I decided to strike out on my own and publish books my way. This website focuses on my most recent material…and my company—Arcola Creek Press.

My first “official” ACP book is a memoir about my beloved English cocker spaniel, Kalli. And there’s much more in the works. Kicking off with The Crystal Mastiff, I’m planning a number of books in the Tess And Walter Mystery Series revolving around a fictitious village on Chicago’s North Shore. In addition, I’m going to be launching a second mystery series in the very near future. This one will be set in Civil War Washington, D.C. and feature a spy/sleuth husband and wife team.

Indeed, there’s always something new happening at Arcola Creek Press.