I was a good student but extremely shy. I always had my nose in a book. My other interests and activities centered around church and music. I took piano lessons from age nine through the end of college and began teaching piano when I was 15.

I graduated from El Camino High School in 1969, and in 1973 from Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, California with a major in Behavioral Science and minors in Bible and Music. I later took a course in writing for children through the Institute of Children's Literature. Over the years, I have often served as a pianist and teacher at church.

My husband and I raised our two boys near Winnemucca, Nevada (Paradise Valley and Orovada). Northern Nevada--full of cattle ranches and hay growers--is known as "cow country." We never had our own ranch, but my husband worked on many local ranches. Living an hour from town, I was a stay-at-home mom. I always had a few piano students, and when the boys started school, I worked part-time at school as an aide or substitute teacher. We even home-schooled two years. I began seriously writing in the late '80s (my mid-thirties).