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Interview

Do you recall how your interest in writing began?

I’ve been writing most of my life whether it be a diary, journal or dabbling in poetry when the mood struck me. In grammar school, I had a poem selected for publication in the school yearbook. I guess you could say it was my first published work.

Around age thirteen, I began a love story in a simple spiral notebook based on a picture I’d drawn depicting a couple, walking arm in arm. Quite the romantic at the time, I continued the story diligently, though, I have no idea what became of it.

Later, in high school, I took journalism and creative writing classes, which I absolutely loved. I always had a fruitful imagination and this allowed me to follow my muse.

What are your current projects?

I am in the process of writing Curse of the Marimé, a gothic mystery novel chock full of gypsy lore, wolves, and shape shifting. It is the first in a planned series.

I am also actively seeking publication of my first crime novel, Dancing on the Edge, and editing with E-Press Online.

Have you ever had an experience with wolves, or perhaps your dog in some odd way?

One of the premises of my work in progress, Curse of the Marimé, is telepathic communications with a wolf. Pita, the Protagonist, finds herself linked to a wolf that tells her secrets and protects her from things she does not yet understand.

I truly believe communication is possible at some level with the animal world if we, humans, would just open our minds to it. In this particular area, my expertise would be of the canine variety of our furry, four-legged friends.

I had many dogs in my childhood years. Since I married, I have had two wonderfully communicative Shelties. Kazzy, my first little guy, got sick and passed on five years ago.

As I said, canines speak to humans in so many ways. We are all too familiar with those soulful eyes gazing up at you when they want something or the titillating excited greeting we get when we come home, even if we’ve only been gone ten minutes. How about the slap of a paw when they want you to get something for them, or they just want your attention? These are all common communications.

I wanted to share a very special moment I experienced with Kazzy. As I said, he got very ill and we had to…well…you know. It’s still difficult to speak of and the memory is tender. Anyway, we agreed to have him cremated and then bring him home. Well, the procedure takes about a week to ten days.

Exactly ten days after his passing, I awoke to find Kazzy’s gentle dark eyes gazing at me, tongue lolling happily in a huge doggy grin. In my mind, I heard, “don’t be sad, Mommy, I’m okay now.”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourselves, “Ah…she just had a dream.” But that’s where I’d say you are wrong. A few hours later, I received a call from the vet’s office telling me that Kazzy's ashes were ready. I believe it was Kazzy's way of telling me he was coming home where he belongs.

To this day, there are moments when I feel the soft rub of fur against my leg or see a blur of sable out of the corner of my eye and Gypsy is sleeping in another part of the house or out in the yard. Kazzy is here with us of this I have no doubts. It comforts me because, to this day, the grief of his loss still pains us like a knife through our hearts.

What do you see as the influences on your writings?

I have two interests as far as my writing is concerned. I like crime-drama stories and the paranormal, and I love gothic lore and legend. I have been interested in the supernatural since a very young age. I’ve read and watched everything I could on the subject throughout my life. To this day, I hold the soap opera Dark Shadows from the sixties as a major influence. In this genre, I can let my imagination run wild.

For as long as I remember the strange, ghostly, and the unexplained have captured my imagination. I soaked up anything I could on the subjects. As a teenager, I delved into witchcraft and spells, experimented with Ouiji boards and held séances. I watched the old vampire and ghost stories and movies and read every paranormal and gothic book I could get my hands on. I loved books set in mansions with marauding ghosts. Later, I turned my passions to vampire stories. Anne Rice captured my interest with her Vampire Chronicles in the eighties.

In my late teens, always up for a heart thumping thrill, I loved going places that legend deemed haunted or scary. I went to old cemeteries and perused the century old head stones, visited an old deserted asylum once, and wandered through empty houses. We have legends of the Jersey Devil in the Wharton Track, also known as, the Pine Barons in Southern New Jersey. We used to go out to the Pine Barons and drive around at night. In some places, there weren’t even streetlights, just dense forest on both sides of the road. Sometimes, we would even park the car along side the road and watch intently out into the darkness, hoping to see something, but we never did venture out of the car to investigate. I was not that brave, let me tell you. A couple of years ago I wrote a short story inspired by the South Jersey legend titled, A Jersey Tale.

Other influences were shows like Gene London, Night Gallery, Twilight Zone, and as I mentioned above, Dark Shadows, all of which I watched faithfully.

I think the movie that affected me the most as a kid was The Exorcist. I remember being so frightened lying in my bed at night that the bed shook and all could think of was the scene when the bed was jumping up and down. I lay there eyes wide open, frightened, staring into the darkness, and prayed to God to protect me.

Any ties to Romania, gypsies, or fortune tellers?

Romania, no, though I have a very good friend who has spent some time in Romania and has proven to be a wealth of information and a valuable help on this project.

Gypsies…there’s another infatuation from my childhood. I was perhaps 11 years old and it was Halloween. My mom got the idea to dress me up as a Gypsy woman. She hand-made me a colorful ankle length skirt and dressed me in a white gauze peasant blouse with puffy full sleeves. The ensemble tied together with a long fabric sash. She colored my long blond hair with a temporary black dye, and let me wear huge silver hoop earrings and an arm full of bangling bracelets. She even made my face up. Oh, I was the cat’s meow that day, or should I say the wolf’s howl?

Gypsies are mysterious, very much misunderstood and full of lore and rich history much like other oppressed peoples, such as the Jews. In fact, as with the Jews, the Nazis exterminated approximately 500,000 Roma(aka Gypsies) and Sinta in their ovens during the Holocaust The mystery and lore of the Roma people has partly inspired my new work in progress, Curse of the Marimé.

The real inspiration, believe it or not, came from a visit to the grocery store on my way home from work one afternoon. I was gathering some things I needed when approached by an elderly woman who looked as if she stepped out of a picture of a caravan scene depicted in a research book I have on Gypsies.

She was small, dressed in a drab brown-green skirt, a bright, flowered blouse and clunky serviceable brown shoes and socks that slouched down around her tiny ankles. She wore her hair bound in a tight knot at the back of her head.

She approached me and advised with some urgency that she had something to tell me, something of great importance. She pushed a business card into my hand and advised me again that I should come see her, then, left me where I stood. I glanced down at the card. A seer, psychic, whatever. I was about to dump the card on a shelf, but, instead pocketed it and went about my business. It did spook me and I worried about the what or why she approached me, though, I never called or saw the woman, but Pita does in Curse of the Marimé and I’m not sure whether Pita is going to be happy or regretful that she did. You remember what happened when Pandora opened the box, don’t you?

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Hmmm… I have to say Laurell K Hamilton. She just blows me away. Her characterization is totally amazing and the imagery draws you right into the story. Every book wraps around a new unique story. I can’t seem to put her books down. I only hope that is how the reader reacts when reading my books. The Anita Blake series is what hooked me and pulled me in. Now I am engrossed in her Meredith Gentry series.

Another of my favorites is Edgar Allan Poe.

Do you wish you led the life of one of your characters?

Absolutely. My characters are usually everything I’m not. Sure, they do have some of my qualities, for better or worse, but for the most part, they are my alter ego. They are doing things I can only imagine. Living lives I can only dream about. Come sample my characters, see for yourself. I know you will fall in love with them and for a little while, forget the chaotic world and get as caught up and lost in my stories as I do while writing them.

How would you describe yourself?

I’m enjoy writing stories, cultivating orchids and various other flowers in my gardens, loving on my Sheltie and my husband, not necessarily in that order.

I like to help people in any way I can and have recently started an editing agency with AJ Dryna, a fellow writer and good friend, called Spirit Critiquing Service www.spiritcritiqueservice.com.

I am too sensitive for my own good, and at times embarrassingly gullible. I am consistent and a perfectionist to a fault. And because of the Curse of the Marimé, I am the keeper of the wolves.