Bio
In writing my first novel, The Lines Between Us, I returned to an early love, Spanish literature, which I studied in graduate school. The idea of setting part of my novel in seventeenth-century Spain, their Golden Age of literature, offered me the chance to explore a time and place with which many readers are unfamiliar, and to show some of the challenges for women particular to that time and place.
For my second novel, I decided to stay in the seventeenth century, as I find it fascinating. I wanted to show a woman doing something unusual for the time, and I hit upon the topic of cartography. In my research I soon learned that Amsterdam was the capital of map-printing at that time, so I had my setting. It was while I was exploring that world that I came across the work of map colorists. My protagonist was born.
I have worked in hospital administration and as a teacher of English as a Second Language to adults. I have been lucky to be involved with the same monthly book group, sharing our enchantment with literature, for over thirty years. I live in Oakland, California with my husband, Arthur, where we are fortunate to frequently spend time with our children and grandchildren.
I am member of Paper Lantern Writers, an author collective, and the Historical Novel Society.
