I grew up in New York City, a place I hold close to my heart and love to write about. When I was in my early 20s, I met my husband-to-be at a poetry reading in Greenwich Village, and a few years later we moved to western Massachusetts. We spent 17 years in Northampton, before moving to a more rural neighboring town next door to 350 cows. I have always loved writing and reading, and before publishing Escaping Into the Night and Playing Dad's Song, I wrote many (published and unpublished) poems and short stories and several (unpublished) adult novels. When I'm not writing, reading or at my day job (teaching at the University of Massachusetts) you can find me in my garden; hiking with my dog in the woods; cooking and/or eating gourmet vegetarian food; planning/taking a trip to some exotic place; singing, playing music, going to concerts, plays, and movies; cross-country skiing; bicycling; being a control freak; or fretting over some seemingly unsolvable problem with my plots and characters.