Using my background in health care, I have always been interested in how people employ fantasy to escape their current circumstances; and sometimes, their pain. Before turning to writing full-time, I knew that such a distraction could help create an ability to tolerate what might be momentarily unbearable.
 As retirement loomed, there was finally time available to free creative juices thatallowed my fingers to flow, creating characters and scenes unfolding what I hopedwould become epic stories. And as they flowed, the characters spoke up, guiding how they would respond when scenarios were created. The muse on my shoulder took the form of my high school English teacher who pushed me with her trusty red pencil and supported my creativity and love of words.
 Now, writing epic fantasy, my books have become an allaying salve for pain, relief and escapism to abandon, for the moment, this world and embrace, for a time, another. Sometimes it’s for myself…and always for those who are just looking for a worthwhile read.
 Born and bred in the Midwest, I call Wisconsin home. My reveal: Most of my ideas come in the shower when I ask my characters, “Okay, where are you going to take me today?”