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I grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, the middle child of seven. My parents both had deep roots in the Scottish-Irish-English communities of the Ottawa Valley. Family stories fostered a fascination with history in me; at the library, however, which I mined for huge chunks of fiction, I was attracted to stories of adventure and mystery.

After earning a BA in history at Carleton University, I added a degree in library science at the University of Toronto and worked in U of T libraries for nine years. Quitting that work to raise my son James, I also found more time to get serious about writing. Later I went back to school for a diploma in journalism at Conestoga College, Kitchener, then worked briefly for a small-town newspaper. I am now a writer in the communications department of the University of Waterloo, where I deal with subjects as diverse as quantum computing and the history of war.

By night I write fantasy/mystery/adventure books for readers from eight to 108. In English I have published The Spiral Maze (Thistledown, 1997); The Bone Flute (Orca, 2004), which was chosen for the OLA Silver Birch reading program; and The Ruby Kingdom (2007, Dundurn), book 1 in the Passage to Mythrin series. Book 2, The Prism Blade, is due to come out in spring 2008. I’m at work on book 3, The Starry Window.

I have also published nine YA paranormal thrillers through Cora Verlag, a publisher in Hamburg, Germany. These books were written in English and translated into German, so I have never read them in print.

I grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, the middle child of seven. My parents both had deep roots in the Scottish-Irish-English communities of the Ottawa Valley. Family stories fostered a fascination with history in me; at the library, however, which I mined for huge chunks of fiction, I was attracted to stories of adventure and mystery. After earning a BA in history at Carleton University, I added a degr... More