I write upmarket, book club fiction and work as both a freelance nonfiction writer and editor. I earned my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at The Newport MFA and hold a Bachelor of Science in Forensic Chemistry. After working in humanitarian logistics in the late 1990s, I authored a field manual commissioned by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency on humanitarian operations. This work inspired my novel and caused me to ask: “When You’re Trying To Do Good, How Do You Do No Harm?”

I also serve as the Editorial Manager for Seacoast Church in South Carolina that has 13 campuses. I’m grateful to be part of the Creative team, where I have conducted over 90 interviews and have edited the work of 110 different writers. I enjoy telling stories of how people persevere through the trials in their lives. Seeing people in the breezeway, you may think everybody seems picket-fence-and-pearls happy, but then, you hear their stories, and you realize, you didn’t understand a thing. I believe stories help us empathize and try harder to do life together.

I have been a semi-finalist in both the novel and short story categories of the William Faulkner – William Wisdom creative writing competition, as well as a Bronze medalist for the Frasier award for novel.

In an earlier life, I also served as the principal writer for The A21 Campaign – U.S. East Coast office that combats human trafficking. During that time, I created the Poetry for Their Freedom contest judged by the former South Carolina poet laureate, Marjory Wentworth, to help spread awareness in the literary community about human trafficking.