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Bio

My Life Story in 500 Words or Less

They say that the "baby of the family" is spoiled, and God knows there's evidence of that in my case. But as the youngest of five, there wasn't really enough attention to go around in my boisterous Italian family. No one remembers my first word, and there are few photos of me as a child.

One photo that does exists shows me curled up on my father's lap in his home office, sucking my thumb while he reads aloud to me from The Wall Street Journal. Could this be why I was the only child in first grade who wanted to be an Investment Banker when I grew up? I don't actually remember those sessions, but I certainly wish I'd begun investing back then.

My earliest memory is learning to read. I was three or four years old. One of my sisters was eight, and learning phonics in school. We were lying on the hardwood floor in the foyer of our drafty old house in western Pennsylvania, and she was reading Dr. Seuss books to me. I already knew the alphabet, but she explained all about how letters made sounds, and those sounds formed words. Eureka! A lightbulb went on over my head, just like in a Warner Brothers cartoon. I read my first book right there on the floor. I think it was Dr. Seuss' Hop on Pop.

From that moment, I read everything I could get my hands on. There was no shortage of books in the house, but I'd read anything — cereal boxes, milk cartons, shampoo bottles. I loved fiction most of all, and I constantly made up my own highly melodramatic stories. In my strict Catholic elementary school, I was often punished for daydreaming. I won't share the revenge fantasies I concocted during those long hours standing in the corner. If I ever decide to write horror, I'll need them for source material.

When I was eight, I actually wrote one of those daydreams down, and the older kids who published the school newspaper printed it. I think they were under duress to include younger students in the paper. Whatever the reason, I was in print — and they even paid me. For my one-page creature-on-a-rampage story, I received a candy bar.

It's more than thirty years later, and I'd still sell a lot for a good piece of chocolate. I ran away from the Pennsylvania snow to the west coast, and now live in San Francisco with my spouse of over 20 years.

I write every day, rain or shine, and I'm fortunate enough to be publishing on a regular basis, for slightly better wages than candy bars. Why did I pick romance? Maybe because there's nothing more life-altering than falling in love. Or because too many things end badly in this world — I can't think of anything more rewarding than writing stories that always end "and they lived happily ever after."