I grew up in a small suburb of Buffalo, New York called Gardenville. We lived  next to the artist, Charles Burchfield, and I think the contrast of his realistic and surrealistic paintings is a symbolic parallel to my life. I started writing poetry when I was very young and my first publications came in high school. My four books of poetry are: Mirror Me; Poems For the Asking; Women, Flowers, Fantasy, and Spirit and Joy. I also have over two-hundred individual poetry, essay, article, and short story publications in anthologies, magazines and newspapers.

I taught high school English, acted, directed, and wrote for a children’s theater company and coordinated a performing arts program for young people in need of supervision. I also started a publishing company and worked in a small print shop. My Metaphysical influences come from time shared in the ashram of Guru Maharaj Ji and in the home of the Catholic Sisters of Social Service. 
            My work as a Production Assistant in radio and television was short-lived when I transferred to a position as journalist/photographer for a Catholic newspaper. There I learned from talented professionals how to research, interview, and write dialog. I was finally writing for a living, a meager living, so I returned to teaching. I eventually became the first female full professor at the University at Buffalo Educational Opportunity Center.

While at the EOC, I pursued my interest in oral histories, Woman’s History and Black History. I was convinced that many voices are omitted from our history books, so I began an EOC Oral History Archive; spoke at the Charles Burchfield Oral History Symposium; compiled firsthand accounts of the Civil Rights Movement; and wrote two biographies about religious women. A Journey of Light in the Darkness about Sister Judith Fenyvesi, SSS, and “Mystic, Clown, and Servant of God,” about Sister Karen Klimczak, SSJ.

My Nikki Barnes Mystery Series continues some of the themes of my oral history writing. Agenda for Murder, Called to Kill, and Close to You deal with characters who are primarily women, racial minorities, gay, and/or handicapped. These books show the grittier side of life including the toll that war takes, and they conform neatly to the amateur detective genre. There's sex and violence but goodness always prevails. 
            I have recently ventured into playwriting and two of my plays are being produced, Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies and Mother Cabrini’s Mission to America.

As a Professor Emeritus, I find some of my themes have not changed. My new book, Sister Amnesia, is a humorous, modern-day allegory about finding yourself and finding home.

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