I first began writing in 1992, when my then six-year-old daughter Meredith came home from Career Day at kindergarten and asked me, "Mommy, what did you used to be when you were a real person?" Zing. Right between the eyes for a 32-year-old stay-at-home mom with another daughter in fourth grade and a son still in diapers.

Sure, I'd had a life before motherhood; didn't we all? I'd played baseball and basketball every free moment, dreaming of filling my idol Joe Morgan's slot at second base for the Cincinnati Reds or playing point guard for my beloved Boston Celtics; I'd laid on my back in the cool Iowa grass, watching the stars and dreaming of someday revealing their mysteries; I'd studied vocal music in college and put myself through school by waiting tables and singing in bars, dreaming of someday doing it for more than free beer and what amounted to gas money.

That day in October, 1992 I realized that while I loved my kids, I still missed the other things that used to make me a whole person. And that time wasn't going to stop and wait for me to catch up. I needed to create something of my own, and prove to myself I was still a "real person."

Why writing? Why not? I read--constantly--and that was a place to start. But write what? I was (and still am) active in genealogical research, having been blessed with a multitude of family stories, and the answers I sought in the old records and letters were often not the ones which had a line on a family group sheet. I wrote copious notes on my old Apple IIe computer, detailing the facts as I found them and comparing them against the stories my grandmother had told. More and more I found myself hypothesizing the whys of my ancestors' actions, until my great-great-great grandparents Nick Bartoloma and Anna Marie Wagner were as real to me as anyone in the present day.

"Write what you know." And I knew Nick and Anna. So I sat down and started to write. I typed The End on Almost Home, an historical romance, five months and 110,000 words later.

I wish I could tell you that that first manuscript went on to become a bestseller and I sky-rocketed to fame, but nope. Not that one, nor the three that have followed. But there were enough small sales of non-fiction articles, and enough joy in the writing process to teach me that it wasn't recognition I needed so much as the creation. So I sat down again to write, and I haven't stopped since.

I do a little bit of everything; a novel in progress, opinion columns for the local paper, random essays, poetry, and a whole lot of html. To say my reading tastes are eclectic would be an understatement.  These writers and thinkers have all inspired and driven me, as well as given me countless hours of pleasure.  My thank you to all of them.

• Robert Heinlein: like most children of my generation, I grew up with his books.  First Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and The Rolling Stones, growing later into The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Stranger In A Strange Land, Time Enough For Love and all the rest.  He taught me that words are magic, and that the writer has the power to create a new reality, limited only by his imagination.
• Andre Norton:  this gifted author taught me that girls are indeed allowed to write books.
• Sylvia Engdahl: from this wonderful woman's young adult novel Enchantress From The Stars, I learned that not only are girls allowed to write books, they could star in them, too.
• James Joyce: taught me that a passion for justice and freedom is never wasted.
• John Milton:  with Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained: that words are power, and the themes of damnation and redemption are eternal.
• Julie Garwood:  with Guardian Angel, Gentle Warrior, The Secret, and all the rest taught me that the themes of love are just as eternal as Milton's, and just as passionate as Joyce's.