(Click here for my press-kit bio.)
One day a nine-year-old girl was surveying the bookshelf above her desk—Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Virginia Hamilton, and admittedly more than a few Sweet Valley Twins—and it occurred to her that she could write a book someday herself. Maybe more than one!
...And here we are. 🤓
I write novels (for readers of all ages), practical philosophy, and I wrote and updated the Moon Guide to Ireland from 2006 to 2019. I studied art history and Irish Studies at New York University and received my M.A. from the National University of Ireland, Galway. I'm a master-certified vegan lifestyle coach and educator through Victoria Moran's Main Street Vegan Academy, and an underlying value system of authentic compassion informs and nourishes my coaching and teaching practices. Over the past twenty years I've also gathered plenty of insight and perspective as an author, editor, and bookseller. I currently live in Washington, DC.
What's your best advice for aspiring writers?
Read everything you can get your hands on and reflect on why and how the narrative works (or doesn't).
Prioritize your emotional wellbeing by journaling each day about what you're feeling and why you're feeling it.
Be willing to write stories that aren't very good; understand that you are in your apprenticeship period and rushing through it will only set you back in the long run.
What do you mean by "ego management"? How does a novelist get into writing self-help books?!
As a younger writer I was fixated on recognition...so what happened when things (inevitably) didn't work out as I'd fantasized they would? As I see it, you can either cultivate self awareness, gentleness, and understanding (thereby liberating yourself from all the cultural messaging around "success" and celebrity), or you can become the emotional equivalent of a raisin forgotten between the sofa cushions. It's 100% your choice.
What are you working on now?
A time-travel novel for grown-ups!