I wrote my first unfinished novel in fifth grade, so I’ve been at this a long time. I wrote my first completed novel after college when I was 22, and I wrote 4 more novels before The Kennedy Debutante sold in 2017 when I was 42. So yes, that was twenty years and 5 unpublished novels before I “made it.” I wouldn’t change a thing – and if you’re an aspiring writer reading this, take heart, I believe in you. If you’re looking for advice, may I recommend my first published book, which is actually a memoir: This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World – you don’t have to be a young write to read it, I promise!

Since Kennedy, I’ve been lucky enough to publish 4 books with Berkley of Penguin Random House, with a 5th on the way: Summer of Love, which will come out the summer of 2026. Please subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on Instagram to stay up to date on that release.

I’ve lived on both coasts, and I live just west of Boston now, but I’ll always identify myself as a California girl. My parents are native Californians and live there still, plus I spent the formative years of sixth grade through college in the golden state.  But the truth is, I’ve actually lived more of my life on the East Coast. After college, I lived in Brooklyn, NY, for 6 years – I ate really well there, and cheaply, and shopped at awesome thrift shops (sigh; I still miss it sometimes). During those New York years, I also got my MFA at Columbia, and my first teaching gig as a grad student instructor in the Undergraduate Writing Program there. Then I lived in Connecticut for another 6 before moving to the Boston area when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2010. I taught writing for many years, starting as a grad student, then as a lecturer at Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ, before moving to MA and having a baby and changing my life yet again.