I grew up in many places, beginning in Edinburgh, Scotland, then passing through England, New Zealand, Texas, and Michigan, before finally settling in North Carolina, where I went to college and graduate school at Duke University, and where I returned once my husband and I both finished our training and got real, grown-up jobs at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem.
I always liked being an outsider, a little different, someone who could be pretty much at home wherever I found myself. But I came to realize that I was not completely at home anywhere, not in Edinburgh, where when I visited everyone assumed I was American, nor in the U.S., where I never quite understood everything. I still don’t, which is one of the reasons why I write.
After working in various jobs, as a groom, a secretarial assistant, a lifeguard, a molecular biologist, a salesgirl in a classical record store, and most recently as a visiting assistant professor of English, I am now a full-time writer. I live in a 100-year-old house with my husband and three daughters, and I am very pleased to be home at last.
