I am a fiction writer with a book of stories, *Unmarriageable Daughters*, published (Lewis-Clark Press, 2008) as well as a novel, *I'll Be a Stranger to You* (Outpost19 e-books, 2011).
I have also a second novel, currently under submission: *Marian Hall,* which is based on the life of Elizabeth Bentley (1908-1963), a member of the American Communist Party who spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s and '40s.
I've taught creative writing at Texas Christian University and Whitman College in Washington state and currently am employed as a visiting professor of creative writing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
I write mostly because I just really want to. I've been writing stories (and even novels) since I was a young child. It was something I never grew out of. I decided early on to try to make a career of it; it seemed to be who I was, somehow. I wanted wider recognition of that fact, I suppose. Today, I'm not fully happy if I'm not working on a writing project.
I always say that Henry James' *Portrait of a Lady* is my favorite book, and that probably isn't far off the mark. I like, or at least am interested in (because he does have a *few* bad books) anything by Henry James. More recent "favorites" are Denis Johnson (*Resurrection of a Hanged Man* and *Jesus' Son* in particular) and Mary Gaitskill (*Two Girls Fat and Thin* and just about any of her stories). As inspiration for *Marian Hall,* I also recently discovered John Banville, in particular his *The Untouchable.* Also long time favorites: Russell Banks! and Alice Munro, especially her early-to-mid period stuff, actually, up, about, to *Friend of My Youth*.
