I grew up in the horse country of  Maryland, attended girls’ schools (a terrible and unhappy student) and graduated from Smith College in Northampton Mass, with honors in Italian language and literature.  I wrote my thesis on the writer Italo Svevo (a friend of James Joyce) and the elusive nature of Reality.  After college I took typing and shorthand (which is what women did in those days after graduating from a major university) and found a job at the Smithsonian Institution, where I began as a clerk-typist and left six years later as head of the newly established film and television department.  I had already made two films and a TV program for the Smithsonian, one of which was sent to the Venice Film Festival, but I never had a chance to work as head of films, because  my husband took a job in New York City, where,  following him, I discovered that young girls didn’t write and produce films, at least in those days; and since I wanted anyway to be with my new baby (Sarah),

 

I decided to teach myself to write – by selling articles to magazines.  Somehow I managed this successfully, publishing articles from Esquire to the New York Times Magazine. Later, with a second daughter (Molly), I left magazine work and began to write books and plays, and that’s what I’ve done ever since.  While living in New York, I worked part-time as an Acquisitions Editor of a publishing house, David McKay (the company had published my first best-seller, The Art Crowd).  That was my second “job.”  My third came years later when I served as Executive Director of the Fund for New American Plays at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, working directly with famed Broadway producer Roger Stevens. We gave away money to theaters to produce new plays and to playwrights to write them. My third perfect job!  Apart from these, I’ve always been a writer, working on my own.  Today all my work has a spiritual component, and though the story of my spritual journey is too long to go into here, it’s laid out again and again in my work. As a child my ambition was to “understand!” (Understand what? “All of it!”) As a writer it was in the words of Tacitus, “to move the minds and hearts of men.”  Today, my ambition is simply to enjoy.  I’m left breathless by the beauty and anguish of this lovely world.   I live in Washington D.C. and Taos New Mexico.          With the passage of time, I look back in amazement at my accomplishments: Mother of two  brilliant daughters and four granddaughters (we breed women in the family) Author of twelve books, eight plays, plus essays, articles, profiles and investigative journalism. Three books on the Best Seller lists of the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and a dozen other lists. Work translated into some 22 languages, including odd ones like Croatian, Korean, Finnish, Czech, Latvian, etc. Founding member of the Studio Theater in Washington, D. C. Founding member of the D.C. Community Humanities Commission, the regranting arm of the National Humanities Council Prolific public speaking, giving workshops and talks on Angels, Forgiveness, Contacting the Divine, the Spiritual Journey, Prayer, Creativity, and other subjects. Private students in writing. Numerous appearances on radio & TV, including Larry King Live, Oprah, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, the Today Show and hundreds of others; numerous magazine and newspaper articles about my work. Member of the prestigious Cosmos Club, of Washington, DC., where I’ve served on many committees. Recent Work I offer “Illuminations” – working as an Intuitive or Medium. I am a Reiki Master giving and teaching others to give healing touch I serve as a Spiritual Director, accredited by the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Direction in Bethesda, MD.   But what I like to do most is to ride my beautiful half-Arabian horse. I’m learning Dressage.  I dance, do yoga, play with my grandchildren, write, walk, travel, see my friends, and feel myself angelically blessed. Especially knowing that my work has touched people around the world, and changed their lives. It fills me with humble gratitude.   Look Inside This Book