Getting Started |
My first book was a children's story My Name is Mike Trumpsky written for elementary school libraries in 1979, and it is currently out of print.
After years of writing advertisements, video scripts, newsletters, newspaper feature stories, annual reports, and ghost-writing for employers, I decided to try writing a full-length novel.
I felt driven to write The Death Called Change as I had been working for a small retirement home that was in dire financial straits. The impact of this uncertainty on elderly people who had thought they were secure for life was profound, so I wrote a novel based on my experiences in this situation. I wrote from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. before awakening my husband and children. From this I learned that I had lost my natural writing voice to the clipped requirements of the commercial world and was concerned that I might not find it again.
Seven years were spent working with Chhalith Ou to write his memoir of being a young teenager under the Pol Pot Communist regime in Cambodia. The result, Spare Them? No Profit. Remove Them? No Loss, is an important story because it gives an insider's view of how the Khmer Rouge's traveling workgroups functioned. Nowhere else have I found such a detailed description.
With these two published and selling, it was time to develop my storytelling skills and to find my own "true voice" as an author. This past year I finished the first in a series of mysteries called God's Child. The first is called The Origin of Fear. It takes place in rural Wisconsin in 1940-41 just before World War II begins, when there were few resources available to help solve brutal murders taking place in isolated areas. I hope readers enjoy this historical mystery.
During the years when I was a marketing manager for not-for-profits, if something needed to be accomplished for which no funds had been budgeted, I had to find a way to do it myself. That left me with skills that I can put to good use now as an author. I do my own editing, formatting for e-book upload, illustrations, photography, graphics, and websites. Because I am self-taught, that means that I am constantly learning and trying to improve, so it seems wise to try and keep things simple
Please go to my blog and write me a note. I value your feedback.
A writer but so much more . . . .

