I had a more formal bio to begin with on here, but I'm not a very formal person. So, let's have a little fun with this, shall we? What would you like to know? I suppose we should start with why should you care and what makes me so important that you should be compelled to spend some time with me. Well, I am an Indie author. I write memoirs, they are dark, funny, tragic and hilarious. If you don’t feel better about your own life and your own choices after reading about my misadventures in living, I’d be surprised. I am the reigning champion of “Jerry Springer, the Home Game” after all. Let's see, what else would you like to know? I mean, my life is pretty much an open book at this point. I guess we could start with I was born in Galesburg, IL. I had a mother and a father, they didn't really get along and that's a whole different story that would take an entire other book, and since it's not my story to tell, we'll let it go at that. Shortly after my birth, my mother moved to Quincy, IL where I (mostly) grew up after she married husband #2. At 16, I received a brief tour of Illinois curtsey of foster care and at 18 ran away with my friend Cindy to Phoenix where I lived for three years. I returned to Quincy after my disastrous marriage came to a grinding halt, put my life back together, went to school, earned an Associate in Art in Psychology with a minor in Art. I got a job, well, I've had a lot of them to be honest, and some of them have been pretty weird, but they paid the bills. I’m the mother of five, all of which are grown and gone except my youngest who has a few more years yet before she is let loose into society. I’ve recently become a grandmother, and I expect that will happen more often as the years go by. One of these days I’m going to write a book about my children, much to their impending regret, but that what memoir writers do, they share their lives and their stories. And let’s face it, children are ripe fodder for the funny and the tragic, often all at the same time. I live in a house where chaos is on the menu of the day, every day. For over a decade now I have taken in people in need, the homeless, the helpless and the lost. They come to me broke, and often broken, I give them a clean slate when they walk through the door, and a place to rebuild their lives. I have taken in pregnant women, vets, ex-cons, families and many others who all have one thing in common, somewhere along the way life has pushed them down to the point that they could no longer cope, and their world collapsed around them. When they leave my house, be it weeks or years later, each of them is ready to face the world again, and have gone on to scatter across the states in search of their dreams. (My not so secret dream is that maybe one of these days I will become a moderately successful writer and finally be able to put in that second bathroom I’ve always dreamed of having. In a house of sometimes 12 or more people, that’s no small thing!) Also, I’m pretty funny. So, I hope you will give me a chance to make you laugh, maybe roll your eyes at me, snicker, and on occasion, maybe shed a tear as I continue to share my journey with you. Forever hopeful...
