Be careful what you believe.

I was born.

I came out backwards with the cord wrapped around my neck, and thanks to a country doctor, I lived. It's been uphill from there.

I grew up on Long Island, where nothing happened and nothing changed. When mini skirts were no longer in fashion, they were seen all over my home town. We listened to AM radio, had no cable, and no color TV in my house.

But the highlight of my childhood was being a child model. My father was discovered in Lindy's Restaurant in Brooklyn by an NYC modeling agent who got him jobs as the Dial Soap man, the Viceroy Cigarette man, the Pepperidge Farm cookie man, and the Remington Shotgun Shell man. He dragged us all into modeling and my family did a spread on fallout shelters after the Cuban Crisis for Life Magazine and my dad was on the cover of that issue in a fallout suit. I was also in People magazine and the Smithsonian's magazine. It was then that I realized that I wasn't staying in a small town and that I'd somehow, some way, get to New York City when I was old enough.

We had an old, renovated 34 foot cabin cruiser and we went to Cape Cod and neat little places like Cuddyhunk Island, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Point Judith, and Block Island. We had our own lobster pots, fished in Peconic Bay, and had some great times!

One time, I got to study with some scientists from the Museum of Natural History. They needed to get on Gull Island, a tiny island off the end of Long Island, and hired my dad to get them there. The old docks were gone, there were pilings beneath the water and rocks, as well, and making a landing wasn't easy. But once we landed, it was great! There was an old military fort on the island, complete with underground bunkers and a tower. We were there to study and count gulls, so I followed a scientist around all day who told me everything he knew about the gulls and why they were studying them.

During my teen years, I worked as a scallop and an oyster shucker, a waitress, and a chambermaid. I also spent time in the A&P produce department, weighing and putting up fruits and veggies. I ran my father's fish store on weekends and cleaned houses for rich people.

The saddest part of my childhood was that my parents were alcoholics and my mom left when I was thirteen, which made high school the most difficult time of my life. It was one of the reasons I decided to go as far away as I could when I went to college. And it is also the reason that I write the books I do.

At eighteen I took refuge at SUNY Oswego and later transferred to SUNY at Stony Brook.

I worked on BAD GIRLS CLUB for over seven years, did multiple rewrites and revisions, and sold it to Blooming Tree Press in 2005.

I am still working on my other novels, CRACKING NORMAL and LEAVING FANTASTIC.

I live in the Seattle area and I've returned to college to get a degree in Human Development with a concentration in Family Studies.