Biography

My family roots are in southern Appalachia, and like the rest of my family, I tend to think in stories. I was six when I wrote my first story: five lines, possibly the first flash fiction. At eight, I put my collection of china dogs into a shoebox with a string attached, and pulled the box around and around our block in Jacksonville, Florida, telling myself the saga of the dogs' pioneer journey to California. Which may--or may not--have had something to do with my own going to California fifteen years later. There I became a modern dancer and choreographer, founded and co-directed Body and Soul Dance Company in Berkeley, and toured widely as solo dancer and artist in residence.

After earning a Ph.D. in Theology and Art from the Graduate Theological Union with research that later became the root of the Charles du Luc books, I moved back across the country to New York City. I continued dancing and teaching as an independent artist, and was also half of the tap-dance-and-talk duo A Loose Association with cabaret performer Tom Knudsen. After my knees decided they'd danced long enough, I spent several years as a police officer. That unlikely but fascinating side trip led back to the stage with a commissioned one woman show called Response Time, about a midlife artist hitting the street as a cop.

Like Charles in my novels, I've done a lot of teaching: studio dance classes, adjunct teaching at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, lecturing at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and being an assistant professor of dance at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. Freezing in Minnesota led to a return to New York to write. Besides the Charles du Luc historical mystery series, I also write nonfiction, including reflective essays for the arts journal Image.

I'm now back in Florida with my husband Jay. Besides writing, I bike, kayak, enjoy being warm, and volunteer with Save Our Seabirds, caring for injured birds and raising orphaned baby birds with the hope of releasing them back into the wild.

I hope you'll let me know what you think about the Charles books --and what they make you think about. You can contact me at wingrock@att.net