My work has appeared widely online and in print. Go ahead! Google me. ;)
I'm a Texas woman. I've lived in Irving (near Dallas, where I grew up), Austin (where I graduated from UT in '74), Houston (where I married hubby number one), San Antonio (where my daughter was born) and Bulverde (in the Hill Country north of San Antonio).
I've lived in Bulverde since 1982 surrounded by cactus, limestone, opossum, racoon, white-tail, skunk, hawks, ravens, vultures, wild hogs, coyote, and even mountain lion. I've been married to my hubby for forty years and we raised three kids together who are now grown with kids of their own. I have three g-sons and one g-daughter!
I am introverted, creative, complicated, sensitive, intense, stubborn, serious, playful & compassionate; I love nature and wild places (you'll find lots of this in my poems).
I am the author of four collections of poetry: what she holds (Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, 2020), what holds her (Main Street Rag, 2019) words gone wild (Kelsay Books 2021) and of failure & faith (Kelsay Books, 2023).
what holds her is a collection of ecstatic verse that I claim (and maintain) came to me and that I took down as a sort of dictation as I processed the death of both my parents within twenty-nine days of one another in 2009. I believe it holds a profound teaching that was meant especially for me and for me to share with the world.
In its writing, what she holds, my second collection, served as both process and transformative tool, helping me to heal the difficult relationship I had with my father, posthumously. Any woman who has experienced a form of love-hate will strongly relate and hopefully, be encouraged to heal as well.
I wrote the almost-a-memoir novel Making Room for George: a love story (Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, 2016) as a way to process what was happening to my life when my father-in-law, George, moved in with us. It's a tender, humorous, bitter-sweet story of lives unraveling: his and mine.
words gone wild is a collection of rhymed verse for children, poems I've written over the past several decades.
of failure & faith explores the notion of spirituality as activism and includes many Texas themed poems of place.
Finally, I am founder and managing editor of Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press and of the digital fws: international journal of literature & art. I have served as managing editor for five hard-copy anthologies: The Larger Geometry: poems for peace (peaceCenter Books 2018), Through Layered Limestone: a Texas Hill Country Anthology of place (Friends of the Boerne Library, 2019), Easing the Edges (Friends of the Boerne Libray, 2021), purifying wind (MSSP, 2020),and woodlands (MSSP, 2022). Each purchase of the first three collections directly benefits either the peaceCenter San Antonio or the Patrick Heath Public Library in Boerne, Texas.
fws: international journal of literature & art publishes bi-annually and sponsors the Writer's Idea Box.
I am delighted you are here. Thanks for your support of my work in the world. Let me know what you think. Ask me a question. I'll tell you almost anything!
Namste,
d
