Thanks for visiting my website! Here's a little about me and my unexpected route to finding my passion as a painter and writer.

I could never choose! Art was my first love as a child, and I was encouraged through school and university by parents and teachers, but I turned to writing as a more practical way to live in this world. Somehow, probably because I grew up in a family of foodies, I made my writing career all about food. A brief background: I ran the kitchen of a southern California restaurant, I owned and operated a nationally known cooking school in the Bay Area, I authored nine cookbooks, I wrote a weekly syndicated food column for twelve years for the Los Angeles Times.

It was a good career but not quite enough for my creative yearnings. At age fifty, after a serious bout with cancer (completely recovered now!) I finally returned to painting and my writing took a big turn: I went to graduate school for an MFA and went on to publish six more books, including Qualities of Light, a YA queer novel which was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards, and the Kirkus "Best of 2024" novel Last Bets.

I made peace with the two art forms by season: In summer I paint, mostly outside (en plein air) and in winter I write. My paintings have traveled the world to private, university, and corporate collections. My essays, short stories, and articles are in magazines and literary journals.

To pay forward some of what I’ve generously received from my art and writing teachers and my writing students, I began a weekly award-winning newsletter which has subscribers around the world. In it, I share book-structuring tips, writing insights, and interviews with published writers. I also have a YouTube channel with over 200,000 views that offers tutorials on book-structuring techniques.

I love to paint wherever we travel, my spouse of many years and our two long-haired miniature dachshunds along for the ride.