As a kid, I used to send story ideas off to big magazines like Look and Life—until my hero, my dad, told me that writers were a dime a dozen. I cast aside my dream of becoming one and instead became a remedial reading specialist. Fate intervened, however, when I married a superstar Los Angeles Times photographer and, to my surprise, he introduced me to the paper’s Sunday magazine editor as a writer. Without a second thought, the editor offered me a trial writing assignment in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with my husband doing the photography. When we turned in our stories, she couldn‘t contain her enthusiasm. “Name your country,” she gushed. For the next decade, we roamed the globe doing monthly assignments for the Times, launching the career of my dreams.

As a journalist, today I specialize in business, health and wellness, medicine, spirituality, and travel. I‘ve written half a dozen business books on cities and states, and I’ve been a contract writer for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Keck Medicine of USC, Guest Informant (purchased by Morris Visitor Communications), Top Agent magazine, the World Tribune newspaper, and others.

After working at two publishing houses and earning my MFA in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles in 2009, I added manuscript editing and book coaching to my services. My coaching clients range from filmmaker Andrew Stevens (Foolproof Filmmaking) and travel writer/blogger Devin Galaudet (10,000 Miles with My Dead Father's Ashes) to spiritual teachers Regina Cates (Lead with Your Heart and The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have: A Call to Bravery, Peace, and Love) and Raquel Reyna (Are You a Mutant?).

My recently completed memoir, Liftoff, about discovering my voice in the face of a controlling father, a deranged stepmother, and men who wanted to shut me up, will be available soon.

I live in the Calabasas Highlands of Los Angeles with a friend and two brilliant cats. When I’m not working, I like to walk in the hills, listen to owls hooting and coyotes howling, and do my best to help others uncover the light in their own lives.