ABOUT ME
I was born and raised in a picturesque little beach town on the Jersey Shore, where residents bared no resemblance to Snooki and the only Situation was too much summer traffic. It was during these formative years that I developed a love for all things wordy–most likely inherited from my mother, an advertising copywriter and crossword aficionado, and my father, an avid reader and pun master.
After earning a bachelor’s in English literature from Middlebury College, I went to work as an editorial assistant in the adult trade division of Little, Brown and Co. in Boston. For several years, I fielded the slush pile and schlepped coffee for editors of bestselling authors like Nelson Mandela and Gloria Steinem. When my department was moved to New York, I headed to my dream city of San Francisco, where I mastered A.P. style in the newsroom at Business Wire and attended the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Since breaking into the magazine world in 1996, I have worked as an editor at three top national publications—Shape, Glamour and Parenting—as well as one award-winning regional, Sun Valley Magazine. And I have penned scores of freelance stories for magazines including Shape, Fit Pregnancy, Natural Health, Vegetarian Times, American Baby, Cosmopolitan, Fitness, Travel & Leisure, Tennis, Men’s Fitness, Heart & Soul, and others.
In 1999, I met my now-husband Ted, who seemed like a keeper. So I moved in with him, an experience that inspired my book, Shacking Up: The Smart Girl’s Guide to Living in Sin Without Getting Burned (Broadway Books, 2003). Though published near the well-publicized start of Operation Freedom in Iraq, it received a fair amount of media attention, leading to appearances on CBS Marketwatch, The Other Half with Dick Clark and Danny Bonaduce, KRON 4 Morning News (San Francisco) and Naked in New York with Bob Berkowitz (during which I was fully clothed).
In 2003, my husband and I made the move to the mountain paradise of Sun Valley, ID, our current home. And in October 2005, I added “mom” to my job description with the arrival of our son, Whit. Two and a half years later, I gave birth to boy-girl twins, Jamie and Reese, who, along with their older brother, have provided fodder for articles about breastfeeding challenges, inconsolable crying, keeping a baby warm in frigid weather, and pooping in the potty.