Welcome to My Website!

I hope you'll spend a moment or two exploring the site to learn more about the books I have written, the editing services I offer, my portfolio, and my erstwhile blog. Please feel free to contact me for additional information and to request services.

My Inspiration: The Romero Ruin in Catalina State Park

The three books of the Clay Series were inspired by the local history of the Sonoran Desert and the Romero Ruin in Catalina State Park. To prepare for writing these stories, I researched the history of the Spanish entrada into the Southwestern United States as well as the archaeological history of the area, taking archaeology classes at the local community college, and participating in excavations. I currently volunteer at Archaeology Southwest, a prominent preservation archaeology organization in Tucson.

The Clay Remembers, The Clay Endures, and The Clay Sustains trace the history of a clay pot from the woman who crafted it in the twelfth century and how the spirit of that woman and the presence of the pot affect the lives of a nineteenth-century homesteader's wife and a twentieth-century archaeologist who come to that place for different reasons. These women share a common bond with the land, and each must fight for survival in her own way.

Currently, I volunteer at Catalina State Park co-leading a tour of the Romero Ruin Interpretive Trail on the second and fourth Mondays of the month from October through April. (The regular schedule and time are subject to change, so visit the Catalina State Park website for details.  A map and directions to Catalina State Park are available here.

I respectfully acknowledge that I live and work in Tucson, the ancestral and present-day lands of five Indigenous Sonoran Desert communities: Hohokam, O'odham, Pascua Yaqui, Sobaipuri, and Tohono O'odham.