My passion is storytelling. My dad bought me my first camera at the PX in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1966. It was a Kodak Hawkeye instamatic. I reckon I was destined to become a photographer. In college, I found my camera to be a great way to learn about other people and cultures. I was a shy kid and young adult, but with a camera in my hand, I was brave enough to talk to anyone. In my junior year college, I struggled to catch up with my peers in the world of photojournalism. My photojournalism teacher once ripped a photograph off the wall during a critique (it was a picture of a goose, so yes, it sucked) and asked me if I ever thought of becoming a writer – like that was easy. No, I did not want to be a writer, but I would prove to him I would make it in photography.

As a photographer, I spent much of my career at The Nashua Telegraph in southern New Hampshire and as a regular freelancer for The Boston Globe (with a stint on staff as the picture editor). My photographs have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the country.

When I began dating the boy next door in 1985 – during the early days of the AIDS pandemic – I could not have imagined we would be thrust into perhaps the worst medical scandal of the twentieth century. When years later, I learned the HIV- and hepatitis-contamination of blood products was a preventable tragedy, I picked up my camera and began documenting the victims, the loved ones left behind, and the advocates who worked to make the blood supply safer for you and me. In 2004, after enlisting my best friend, Stacy Milbouer, to write the personal stories, we published DYING IN VEIN: BLOOD, DECEPTION … JUSTICE.

A decade after publishing the photographs and vignetters of other people, the story kept nagging me. It nagged and nagged until I realized my own story was clawing to get out. I put down my camera for the pen and began writing. So yes, Mr. Photojournalism Teacher, I am thinking about becoming a writer. No, I am a writer.

My writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, Art and Understanding Magazine, and The Nashua Telegraph.

Between my photography career and writing endeavors, I taught high school photography, where I loved helping students express themselves through photography and writing projects.

A native of Belle Mead, New Jersey, I spent much of my life in Nashua, New Hampshire. In 2020, my husband and I moved South Florida. We love being near family, escaping to Key West, and visiting independent books stores.