Tell us about yourself.
I am the author of more than 20 books including biography, humorous reference, fiction, and children's literature. I'm from the Detroit area. My degree was in theater and I worked briefly as a professional mime, improvisational comic, and radio announcer before becoming a full time writer. I now divides my time between writing and producing (and traveling on) ballet master class tours with my partner the artistic director of the Russian Ballet Foundation.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
We moved a lot when I was a kid. We lived in Bowling Green, Ohio during my junior high years. My father was getting his Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at BGSU. Junior high is a hard period of life, and I just coped with that by believing it was all temporary. I had a sense that my real life was elsewhere. The character of Clara in Saturn's Favorite Music views her stay in the small town in this way. She's there, but not really.
What was your journey to getting published like?
My father was a professional writer so I was fortunate that my father was able to mentor me in how to find markets and submit when I decided to pursue a professional writing career after I burned out on a radio career. I actually got a job at the AlbanyTimes Union fairly quickly and the first book I submitted sold right away. So getting a foot in the door came easily. Maintaining a career in an ever-changing publishing landscape is harder.
What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received?
I read "On Writer's Block" by Victoria Nelson years ago and it clicked with me. Nelson argues that you should honor writer's block– that it is a message from your subconscious and that it generally has a good reason for stopping what you're doing. Either you're too focused on the outcome, or you need to rest, or something isn't working that you're trying to force. You need to go away and let your subconscious figure out what is missing and then come back fresh.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
I find solace by reading the archives of magazines aimed at writers. What you discover is that writing has been an almost impossible career for more than a century, so it's not you.
