I grew up in Oakboro, North Carolina -- a small textile town on the Rocky River in the southern Piedmont known for its red clay, rolling hills, and river valleys. I pursued creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an undergraduate and went on to earn a MSLS from UNC-CH’s School of Information and Library Science. While a librarian at UNC-CH, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Florida, I wrote in times' nooks and crannies, filling spiral notebooks that continued to outgrow my IKEA bookshelves. In 2015, I organized the Chapel Hill / Carrboro Fiction Writers’ Meetup. I'm working on my 11th and final edit of Red Clay Redemption -- a literary fiction novel about a 70-year relationship between a Rocky River Valley farm girl and the son of the nearby town’s doctor.