In the 1970's my professional life began, singing with the bands Great Chicago Fire and Earthwood. In the afternoons, before our rehearsal sessions, the other members of Earthwood and I watched reruns of the original Star Trek television show. We could quote whole scenes of dialogue before the characters could spit it out. On the road, I read, everything from anthropology to murder msyteries, and lots and lots of fantasy and science fiction, especially Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books.

After marrying Air Force First Lieutenant Jake Marley in 1975, and moving from Great Falls, Montana to Seattle, I returned to college to do what I had left unfinished before, and obtained a Master of Music Degree in 1981. Two years later our son and my career in classical music were born. At one time or another, since then, I've sung with every professional musical organization in the Pacific Northwest, including the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera. I taught voice and related subjects at Cornish College of the Arts for a decade, and I've been the alto soloist at St. James Cathedral, Seattle, for two decades. I've sung concerts in Italy, in Russia, in California and Cleveland and the San Juan Islands. Somewhere in those busy years, as my son grew and I juggled home and work, I started writing the fiction I've always loved to read.

Sing the Light, a science fantasy novel about singers, was published in 1995. Sing the Warmth and Receive the Gift followed, in 1996 and 1997. The Terrorists of Irustan, a novel inspired by the takeover of Taliban in Afghanistan, appeared in trade paperback form in 1999. The next year came The Glass Harmonica, a return to a musical theme, inspired by a concert I had sung a decade before which included a glass harmonica player. I haven't written much short fiction to date, but my stories have appeared in Asimov's and in the anthology Divine Realms, and I've written a number of nonfiction articles, including one for Seattle Opera's magazine about the comprimario singers of the company--a subject I knew fairly well. Increasingly now my time is spent at the computer rather than the piano, but I still sing at St. James Cathedral. My first hardcover, The Maquisarde, is due out in December of 2002, just in time for Christmas giving.

I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, an enthusiastic cook with an interest in health food, a sometime gardener, a former karate practitioner, and a bad golfer. I exercise a lot, and I love to work. I still read for pleasure, although what I like has become more and more narrowly defined. I love to visit schools, particularly middle schools, to talk about writing and science fiction. And I love science fiction conventions for the inspiration, the input, the community, and the cameraderie.