How I Got This Way
When I write, I bring in my experience of living in many places—a lifetime of awareness that different is not bad, that navigating differences takes courage, and that the reward of differentiating is intimacy.
That rhythm of leaving home, again and again, of starting over and being “the new person,” shaped many of my perspectives. Living in so many places (fifteen places by the time I was fifteen) also gave me a deep interest in home, homing, and the physical objects we gather around us.
These preoccupations with the art of being different, the mechanics of intimacy, and concepts about homing weave through my writing.
An additional lens through which I view the world comes from my innate characteristics of being an intuitive, creative, highly sensing empath (in case you’re a personal development nerd like I am, I’ll tell you I’m a Myers-Briggs INFJ type). My sensitive nervous system plus the frequent moves gave me survival observation skills. I learned to read people and situations quickly, for my own physical and emotional safety. My writing style is often described as poetic and observationally intimate, which could be partially a result of the self-protective practice of sensing nuance in order to find my way in new circumstances.
Through all the moves—new schools, people, towns, and cultures—I read. Mom told me she didn’t remember me learning to read. I just did it. I always have a lot of questions (ask my bosses about this and you’ll get an exasperated but fond eye roll). I’m hungry for information and understanding, especially from stories.
Because I was shy as a child, my curiosity took me to books and making art and the solace of nature, not to people. When I lay on the floor with a box of colored pencils, or wondered at a kitten, or adventured in the woods, or sat at the edge of a stream and played with the pebbles, I felt safe and happy. And if the information my curiosity craved came in the form of a story in a book, all the better.
Stories taught me to love myself. They gave me permission to feel all the feelings and believe I am worthy. Stories did what stories do for us humans—show us how to survive and thrive.
Writing stealth stories that weasel in and promote personal growth is my life purpose. My craft (always a work in progress) is to entertain while bringing the reader home to self-love as vitality and the place we’re able to love others from.
Before I wrote novels, I wrote poems and letters, journal entries, articles, and more. All of that self-reflective writing practice helped me get better at identifying truths inside and expressing myself—privately at first, and then to share with others.
At some point, the observational skills and the reading and writing skills combined to create an editor. Since the 1980s, I’ve worked professionally in some capacity as an editor and writing coach, for publishers and as a freelance editor.
The editing experience brings out a deeper commitment to quality in my writing. I understand a lot about the nuts and bolts of writing, from the mechanics (what works, what doesn’t, why it doesn’t, how to fix it) to the process (project development, author conniptions and fear, and how to amp reader emotion, build trust, work with story components, etc.).
For me, developing quality in my writing takes a lot of time. I’m a pretty slow writer, especially of novels, because I use novel-writing to wrestle with issues and figure out myself and people and the world. Every book I write—whether fiction or non-fiction—is a journey that teaches me so much. My happy place is in the midst of writing and researching a topic. This process takes as long as it takes; for novels, it takes years. Story, as an entity, tells me when a novel is done. My work is to listen.
As for where I live now, I’m in Maryland near Washington, DC. But I’ve dubbed myself a responsive relocator, which is kind of like a serial monogamist. I live in a location full-time and wholeheartedly, yet am willing to move if need or opportunity arises. My homes since 2000 have included Vashon Island, Washington; Vancouver and Gabriola Island, British Columbia; Freiburg, Germany; Nashville, Tennessee; and Eugene, Oregon.
A pin on a map at Fort Worth, Texas, marks the first place I lived, where I was born. I remember nothing, because we moved when I was two.
We moved as often as we did because my big-hearted Dad lived to help people. Back then, he was a minister who moved from church to church around the American south, always eager to help the community through the challenges of life and celebrate the joys.
I like to joke that my dad was adopted. He was smaller, darker, and more extroverted than my mom, my younger brother, and me, who were/are tall, skinny, blonde, and introverted. Poor guy. I’m kidding. Dad was amazing. I learned more about acceptance and love from my dad than from anyone else.
Mom’s smarts and creativity taught me the thrill of learning and reading and making things. She was always taking a class or teaching a class. Our home filled with things we’d made ourselves—pastels framed in the living room, drawings in process, hand-sewn clothes, weird wall sculptures made of rusted pieces of metal Mom found on her walks. She wrote poems in her head and let me take any art classes I wanted. Over decades of focused pursuit, Mom grew her skills in her favorite media (marbling, weaving, and poetry). She even went back to college at the age of 73 and got a degree in production weaving.
My brother is the sweetest human being on the planet. For real. He grew up surrounded by strong personalities and managed to come through intact somehow. I was not as sweet, maybe because of the whole fashion (ahem) thing. Who comes up with these hairstyles, anyway?
The four of us—Mom, Dad, my brother, and me—weathered the transitions and moving boxes together for all the years of my childhood.
As an adult, I continued to move from place to place, developing long-lasting devotions to maps, other cultures, different natural environments, and orientation or wayfinding—curious about the tension between lost and found. Where am I? Where is home? How do I get there?
In my twenties, the challenge of finding home woke me to claim Earth as my safe moorage, a home of everywhere, though I didn’t define that perspective until decades later. In college, I switched my major from art to biology and environmental field studies. I pounced on every natural sciences field trip offered and hiked through wilderness areas all over the US and Canada. After graduation from college, I worked for Greenpeace, ending up as an editor on the National Toxics Research Team.
Environmental awareness, nature photography, sustainability, climate change, and the future of humans on Earth (home) also spiral through my life. The natural environment of an island in Washington State features in my novel The Infinite Onion.
I consider myself an artist-scientist, gravitating to the intersection of creativity and practicality. In numerous jobs, I’ve fallen into roles in which I translate perspectives. I’ve taught computer skills to artists, handled graphics for science researchers, done bookkeeping for interior decorators, and managed creative marketing content for a gay relationship coach with a bestselling book.
Mostly, though, I write and take photos.
I’ve long used photography as a way to interact with and appreciate the world around me and my experiences. Putting a camera between me and a scene gives me a way to interact without feeling like the center of attention. I’m always on the lookout for what interests me, which often surprises me—for meaning to discover and interpret through the camera lens. I share the photos to offer my highly sensitive, creative readers with little moments of joy, peace, and wonder.
I write to learn and grow. Writing romance novels allows me to imagine and explore protagonists going through hell on the road to self-acceptance, spurred by the catalyst of a relationship. The self-help books, articles, and courses I write arise from my own struggles and journeys.
I share in the hope of helping someone else find a safe space to feel and heal.
“It’s a good desk. There’s a lot of action, even when I’m not there.”
—Russell Hoban