ABOUT

I grew up living on the east and west coasts of the U.S. and spending a significant part of my elementary school years living in Madrid, Spain. There I played with gypsy kids and learned Spanish while, even in elementary, studying writing and art. Prior to that, I lived with my grandparents, famed classical musicians and lovers of the Bard, as were my mother and great aunt, lovers of verse. Art, literature, and language were in my blood, literally if not yet literarily.

I was raised with science and logic as well, with my curiosity about how things work, especially people, encouraged by my family and probably necessitated by my constant exposure to new ones. In college, though I pursued math and physics at first, my interest in people won out and I graduated with a degree in psychology and, no surprise, a minor in English. There followed my own military tour in Spain (where I live today) then graduate work, a Master of Science in Human Relations and a Ph.d. in Educational and Consulting Psychology. Who said adulthood means one´s curiosity and inclinations cannot be part of “real life”?

A career as clinical psychologist followed, my practice characterized as much by curiosity and innovation as by science and rigor. Throughout, I wrote, poetry and short stories especially, inspired by my clients recovering from familial trauma through psychological regression. A volume resulted, as well as a one on the nature of attitudes and the cognitive structure supporting them. Both are listed here as are two volumes of poetry and prose authored with L.B.Gurd, a product like I am of surfing, civil rights and the California of the 60´s. Later, in grad school, I found existentialist philosophy and the work of Alfred Adler inspiring, writing two critical explications of his work with Professor Mark Bickhard.

Adler´s personality theory, Victor Frankl´s existential examination of the individual human condition, informed my work as a therapist, while the sardonic writings of authors from Voltaire to Adams, Pirsig to Heller have inspired my writing now: a long satirical novel placing an everyday non-hero hero in an imaginary yet ironically archetypal medieval world and a book-length poem in 100 parts which has somehow resisted completion.

Writing now full time has, in my family´s tradition, not meant full time at all as I pursue my love of Spanish in Madrid and of French in France as well. While the curiosity about life and passion for art and literature they fostered in me I experience living in Europe and writing about both of them every day.