I don’t view myself as a great writer. I’m a storyteller, born into a family of storytellers, the youngest of four sisters. We spent our school years in Wheeling, W.Va. Summers were spent on our mother’s farm in Ohio under the guidance of our grandmother. When I was young, the farmhouse lacked electricity, thus no TV, and in those days, there were no home computers, no iPhones or iPads. Chores often kept us busy, but during hot afternoons, rainy days, or in the cool of the evenings, we entertained each other with stories, either reading aloud from the few books we had, or creating tales.
Writing as a profession didn’t occur to me. I got a BS degree in medical technology. I worked in hospital labs, first in Wheeling, later in Seattle where my husband and I moved, wanting to explore the mountains of the west. Both of us enjoyed backpacking. At the end of a day, telling stories around a campfire helped ease the aches and pains of carrying heavy packs.
Working as a med tech satisfied the part of me that liked science, but it came with an emotional cost. Most of the patients I dealt with were slowly dying and there was nothing I could do to alter their fates. It was while working at University Hospital in Seattle that I began to put stories on paper. Unable to control events in the real world, I foolishly believed I could control the characters I would create in the world inside my head.