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I've always been a writer, but my day job was a happy, long career teaching high school honors and AP English classes. Teaching about Thoreau was the seed that germinated in a first novel, Finding Her Way, where he's one of the characters. Since then I've written a middle school novel about the underground railroad--Brave Salamander -- and, most recently, a novel called New World Waiting about 19th century teenagers in Pittsburgh's immigrant community whose English teacher was Willa Cather. I like adding to the reality of my historical fiction with real, historical characters. Most of all, I enjoy the responses of students and teachers I meet who have read my books and like talking about them.

I've always been a writer, but my day job was a happy, long career teaching high school honors and AP English classes. Teaching about Thoreau was the seed that germinated in a first novel, Finding Her Way, where he's one of the characters. Since then I've written a middle school novel about the underground railroad--Brave Salamander -- and, most recently, a novel called New World Waiting about 1... More