I have been reading for so long that I don’t remember learning to read. I clearly remember being in kindergarten in Northern California by the age of four and a half because of strong reading skills. Math is what held me back by first grade; addition stumped me for another year. But reading was a breeze, and from there, writing wasn’t far behind. I wrote and illustrated my first handmade book in fourth grade, about a young girl and her mother in a writing group. My mom thought it was cute, but went back to her romance novel she was trying to publish with an agent in New York. I don’t think she realized her daughter was taking after her… By this time we lived in Wisconsin, and only a handful of years later, my father started an amateur archeological magazine and his own press; he was soon penning nonfiction books. So I was raised in a household that was conducive to writing, learning, and history. My mother loved watching PBS and BBC and reading historical novels; my father loved movies, nonfiction, and the History Channel. By 18, I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a double major in English and Spanish. I lived in Madrid, Spain for the Study Abroad program, and was jealous of the students in Aix-en-Provence. I felt pulled north. I had only had a few semesters of French, but part of me is a serious Francophile. Then I went on to get a M.A. in Spanish Literature from the University of Utah, and flirted with a doctorate in Comparative Literature in three languages.

Amidst years of teaching Spanish and English courses from middle school through undergrad, I felt a strong urge to write fiction. I stumbled on the fantastic story of Huguette Clark in the summer of 2012 and immediately knew I could write her story. In the picture above I am with my grandmother, born in 1924. She was an Eastern Star, Daughter of the Revolution, fifty-year bridge club member, inveterate party-planner, and acclaimed hostess. Being raised by her gave me a glimpse into another world that aspired to very different things than my generation wanted. Whether or not a reader would buy my version of the Clarks’ lives, I couldn’t say, but I knew I had it in me to do it.

I researched for years, reading everything on Huguette I could find or watch. Then I went through a divorce and the project was put on the back burner for awhile. In January of 2022, I was living in ideal circumstances to write a novel. I took out the fifty pages I had written and took a hard look at my voluminous notes. From that point, it took me two years to write the manuscript while teaching full-time in a men’s prison. What a juxtaposition of lives!

Why in the world I thought I could tell Huguette’s story, with my life being so vastly different from the one she led, I can’t say… However, as a female writer, researcher, bibliophile, and introvert, I could heartily agree with her decision to withdraw from society for so many decades. Privacy is the only luxury remaining in the twenty-first century.

I am now working on my second historical novel about another remarkable woman (if the plot works…). Hopefully it will be ready to be published in 2025.