Following a successful career in the corporate and legal worlds as a financial executive, I retired in early 2002, expecting fully to enjoy myself traveling, and playing golf and tennis. Never did I expect to become an author of mystery and suspense thrillers.
When I was cleaning out some drawers in my office at home, I came across several chapters of a novel I had started to write in 1987. The first chapter was so old that the typewritten pages had turned yellow….aah, the good old days of the electric typewriter. My oldest daughter Barbara, an English major and graduate of Boston College, read the fifteen chapters in my manuscript and insisted I complete it. This happened in 2012, and out came Flower ofHeaven, my debut novel.
Since its release, Flower ofHeaven has won four national book awards, has gained over a hundred reviews on Amazon, has…

Journey to 10K: Adventures of an Older Novice Runner
In 2012, I celebrated my 60th birthday by running a 5K for the first time in my life. Never an athlete, I followed the Josh Clark Couch to 5K® designed especially for beginners. Journeyto 10K:AdventuresofanOlderNoviceRunner, my first book, is the story of how I achieved my dream. Written as I went along, it illustrates the successes and failures, good and bad runs, and discouragement and elation that I experienced.

I wrote this book to encourage others who embark on similar journeys. With desire and determination, anyone in good health can succeed in achieving their running goals.

Now approaching 63, I’m currently halfway through training for a half marathon.

Connie lives in North Providence, Rhode Island. Married to Tony for thirty-nine years and the mother of two grown sons, she works in the Guidance…

Everyone writes, just as everyone does art. The difference is that some of us don’t stop. Most people are storytellers at heart, and I’m no different than anyone else in that sense. Even during periods when I wasn’t writing fiction, I spent a lot of time playing and running role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, and Champions. There’s a strong collaborative storytelling aspect to that form of gaming, and I was always drawn to that.

After many years of writing without success, I finally made some decisions about my goals and the process. The thing that led to creating publishable work in my case was switching from novels to short stories. I had two complete novels, some aborted attempts, and a screenplay, but the fiction wasn’t good enough to take to a publisher or an agent. I think the screenplay is adequate, but the novels are…