Author Biography
The day after the 9/11 attacks, a sign popped up in a front yard on South Street. Imagine. What we can't imagine, we can't bring to fruition. So in my writing, I try to imagine a world ruled by a human cooperation instinct. Maybe in our generations, we can bring that imagined future to fruition. Don't say we can't. Of course we can't if we don't think it's worth the effort. Just try. As for me, I've lived a charmed life. Imagine riding the Sandhills ahorseback behind some of the nation's champion trial dogs; or floating McConaughy with a bunch of professional fisherman-Warsaw Concerto on the tape deck and sunlight glinting off the water; or cross-country skiing the Missouri Bluffs; or maybe photographing nesting Canada geese at Branched Oak Lake. I've done all of those things and more, as part of my job. A sixth-generation Nebraskan, I'm thoroughly immersed in midgrass and shortgrass prairies I grew up with two quirky parents and a younger sister who was as much a tomboy as I was. Mom was a retired canary who sang with the big bands in around the Great Lakes and up and down the Eastern Seaboard and my father was a farmer. With my grandmother, I've walked the grasslands, smelling tiny onion blossoms so sweet they'll make your ears ring and watching pronuba moths fall like petals from the waxy, white blossoms of yucca. As a public information officer for the state Game and Parks Commission, I've canoed the Dismal, seined carp, fixed nets, picked trout eggs, and camped out along Bone Creek. I've had the opportunity to photograph wildlife, from Sandhill cranes to elk and buffalo and, having lived my entire life here, I gained intimate knowledge of the landscape that often appears as a character/catalyst in my work. I earned a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Nebraska at Kearney as well as a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I received UNK's Outstanding Thesis Award in the College of Fine Arts and Humanities in 2012 and the Outstanding Work in Fiction Award during its 2009 student conference. I also earned several awards from the Nebraska Federation of Press Women. My fiction has appeared in Kinesis and Platte Valley Review, and my poetry has been published in The Reynolds Review. While at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, I wrote numerous articles for NEBRASKAland magazine, as well as area newspapers.
