Writing

In 1983, I returned to teaching. I taught in a self-contained 6th grade until 1991 when I began dividing my time between the 6th grade and developing a computer lab for the school. By 1993, I was full time in the computer lab and was beginning to build another. I coordinated the use of education software by all students and taught keyboarding and word processing to grades 3-8, troubleshot hardware and software problems, ran the school’s computer network, and gained certification as a Novell Network Administrator.

From 1994 through 2000, I was also the chief editor for all submissions to my church’s quarterly magazine with over 1,500 subscriptions. After retiring from teaching in 2000, I returned to writing. Vera and I have gathered a collection of 2,500+ research books that enable me to maintain historical accuracy in my work. Our library will be given to a local university when I no longer use it.

In the fall of 2000, Vera and I attended a Romantic Times conference. She also enrolled me in a writing seminar and only told me after the fact that I had to write the ending of a story for it. The praise and “first place” my writing earned at the pre-conference writing seminar revitalized my enthusiasm for writing. That “first place” work became Never to Part, a sweet paranormal regency, released in May of 2013 by Regency Reads.

Back home I began writing a book I had outlined many years earlier. When my villain was killed in Chapter 5 the writing came to a standstill. After several conversations with Vera an expanded story line developed—the stories of a group of cavalry officers based on some characters in Bond of Honour and The Curious Rogue. While writing that series I submitted a shorter work. In June 2002, the first publisher who read it, Avalon Books, purchased The Promise Rose.  In 2004, I sold The Scapegrace Miss, retitled The Betrothal, to Avalon Books. It was released in June, 2005. When Avalon Books was purchased by Amazon, I was able get my rights to The Promise Rose. Amazon refused to return the rights to The Betrothal until December, 2021.

In March of 2012 Honour’s Debt, Book One of the Honour series, a Napoleonic spy mystery/romance series, was released. Honour’s Choice, Book Two, followed in May, 2013 and Honour’s Compromise, Book Three, in December of 2013. Book Four, Honour’s Redemption was released in 2017. This series is about a group of cavalry officers, English and French spies and the women they meet and marry as they careen through adventures. At the present time I continue working on the Honour series, whose characters have captured my heart.

Personal Life

In the photos I am 3 years old and a senior in high school.

On the farm I worked alongside my two older brothers. By my mid-teens I had taken over the evening milking chores (and morning during the summer) as well as tending other livestock. Between these duties I helped my mother in the garden. Many summer hours were spent picking, cleaning, and canning homegrown vegetables and fruits, as well as raising and “processing” beef and chickens. The hard work was balanced by much fun. Chasing fireflies, building mud “cities,” generational softball games, barbecues, skating on the pond, and making homemade ice cream were but a few.

I became an avaricious reader as a child and read what was available at home–Reader’s Digest and Time Magazine–as well as the broad spectrum of stories in Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. The Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour westerns my father loved introduced me to adventure and romance. My eighth-grade teacher introduced me to the wonders of the public library in the then distant city of Wichita, Kansas.

After graduation from high school, I earned a BS degree in Education with a minor in American history. In more recent years I studied world history, French, and Latin.