Bio:
I grew up in a small town, Kalona, in southeastern Iowa in the 1940s and 1950s, immersed in a family unit of parents and three older siblings, a Mennonite church, and a rural community. In 1962 I graduated from Iowa Mennonite School (now Hillcrest Academy), and four years later I earned a college degree from Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, with a major in English and a minor in physical education. After living a rather conventional life, albeit nineteen years in Appalachia, I went back to grad school in mid-life and received an M.A. (1994) and a Ph.D. (1998) from Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
I’ve published stories, poems, and essays in small presses, but the novel form is my writing preference. After working with historical material in Eyes at the Window, I enjoyed the shift to a contemporary setting in Everyday Mercies. For ten years plus, I focused on researching and writing a historical novel set during the Civil War in the U.S. All three books of my trilogy Scruples on the Line: A Fictional Series Set During the American Civil War are now available in print, eBook, and audiobook.
My interests in education continue, even though I’m retired from teaching. I worked in high school, community college, and university settings; I taught composition and creative writing/fiction writing classes for ten years at the last location, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Now my two daughters and four grandchildren have replaced students to keep me young. Relaxation comes by reading, tending flowers, listening to music, watching news programs, movies, and sports on TV.