As Joe Friday was fond of saying,
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
I was born and raised in Louisiana.
I took my first photograph when I was about 8, using one of those bellows cameras where you opened the metal front of the case and pulled the camera out on a rail. I thought there was a tiny person inside the camera making the photo and seeing Harry Potter decades later just convinced me that I was right all along, no matter what my parents said.
My earliest memory of consistent writing was when I was 9, when I kept a diary for an entire year. I’m pretty sure I was writing bits and pieces before that, and I know for certain that I've written a lot after that.
Started reading mysteries at about 12, and never looked back. Strangely enough, Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe were more my inspirations than Nancy Drew.
I wrote my first novel when I was 25. Fortunately, it did not survive.
Eventually I immigrated to Canada, where I've lived several places, big and small in Alberta and the Yukon.
Strong men and women have always fascinated me. Coming from a southern strain, quirky people fascinate me, too. You usually only have to go as far as the average, extended southern family to find people who are both strong and quirky, though both qualities are rarely present in the same person.
In addition to writing, I love sewing, quilting, knitting, felting, and making multi-media cards, boxes, and shrines; photography; science fiction; dressing up in costumes; steam punk; British crime dramas (low on the gore, please); and adventure movies (again those low on gore).