Ever since I can remember I've wanted to tell stories—life came at me too quickly to respond and so I wrote what I couldn’t say. Instinctively more comfortable behind the scenes, my first works were plays performed with popsicle stick figures as the actors. From there I went on to write books, stapled pages complete with hand-drawn covers and hand-written chapters.

Before I turned twelve, we moved frequently. Then my dad bought a gym on the outskirts of Pittsburgh and the moves stopped. He and my mother lived there till they died. I left as soon as possible, first running away at fifteen, then for good at seventeen.

Between landing in rehab for the first time at nineteen and having my first memoir published twenty-five years later, a lot happened. After getting a degree in journalism from OSU, I began a career in arts marketing, until the death of my first love drove me to despair and ultimately—after an attempted detour vis a vis the Peace Corps in Tunisia—a second stint in rehab.

Through it all I was writing, film and theater reviews, culture features, and for six years, a dating column, "Modern Love" (long before the other one started). Until my life took a U-turn.

When my husband’s newspaper folded, I took a job in Qatar. Not long after moving, however, my spouse decided to leave. And then tell me he was leaving me.

On the heels of that crushing divorce, I needed a break. Being me, the “break” was a rigorous yoga teacher training course; still I never expected this would alter the course of my life.

Finally I got the courage to ask, What would I do if I wasn't afraid? And I knew. I'd move to New York City and write a book. That book became American Lady Creature: My Change in the Middle East (named one of Bustle’s “11 Books to Battle the Blues”), and now my follow-up is out, Blissful Thinking: A Memoir of Overcoming the Wellness Revolution.

While the memoirs were percolating, I also wrote several one-woman shows and plays that were staged in New York, as well as a short film I also acted in, My Dinner with Steve, which made it into sixteen film festivals and took top honors in three. I'm currently working on a pilot titled, "Inside Hope."

Happily, I've returned to fiction with Florida Girls, A Novel, which tells the story of a troupe of swimsuit models who, near the close of WWII realize they don't want to go back to the lives they had before all the men left town.

Originally from Salem, MA, I now live in St. Petersburg, FL with my favorite husband and beloved dog. It’s also where, to my surprise and gratitude, I present wellness products live on the Home Shopping Network.