I grew up on a cattle ranch in the panhandle of Florida, thirty miles from the nearest bookstore, and ten miles from a library that was sorely underfunded. The librarian’s sole duties seemed to be telling me the book I wanted wasn’t in and shooing me back into the kid’s section. There were plenty of times that I would have sold my soul to get my hands on a new book, so there’s a slight possibility that the Kindle might be the result of a deal between my teenaged self and the devil. One grandmother tried to keep me supplied with books, although they were more likely to be the Louis L’Amour westerns and Barbara Cartland romances she finished reading than the science fiction and fantasy books I loved most. My other grandmother told me stories that awakened my interest in history and stirred my imagination.
I’ve held many different jobs with varying degrees of competence, including lifeguard at a waterslide (no one drowned), waitress (only a few broken dishes), actress in a melodrama theater (good reviews, except for my two left feet), web & multimedia development (I still dabble in that a bit) and, eventually, professor of history and government. If you can find a common denominator between all of those jobs, please let me know. I started writing before the waterslide gig, but only recently has it begun to pay the bills.
On occasion, I write mysteries with just a touch of paranormal under the pen name C. Rysa Walker. Author Caleb Amsel is my partner in crime for some of the Thistlewood Star Mysteries.
You’ll often (too often) find me on Facebook and Threads. If you do, gently remind me that I really should be writing.