My blogs

Where the Catbird Sings

About me

Occupation	writer
Introduction	I began my writing career as a playwright, receiving the Julie Harris Playwriting Award and the New York Drama League Award, working as an NEA Writer-in-Residence in San Francisco, and being named as a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for British and American Women Playwrights. Fiction became my focus after moving to the Carolinas in 1995. I hold an MFA in Fiction-writing from Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. My debut novel, The Second Mrs. Hockaday, published by Algonquin Books, was a People Magazine "Best New Books Pick" and a Woman's Day "Editor's Desk Pick" in 2017, as well as IndieNext, Library Reads, Winter OKRA Picks and WNBA Great Group Reads 2018 Selection. The novel was a finalist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize 2017 and for the Southern Book Prize 2018. I live with my husband in a former cotton-mill town in upstate South Carolina, where I keep bees and garden passionately.

Occupation

writer

Introduction

I began my writing career as a playwright, receiving the Julie Harris Playwriting Award and the New York Drama League Award, working as an NEA Writer-in-Residence in San Francisco, and being named as a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for British and American Women Playwrights. Fiction became my focus after moving to the Carolinas in 1995. I hold an MFA in Fiction-writing from Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. My debut novel, The Second Mrs. Hockaday, published by Algonquin Books, was a People Magazine "Best New Books Pick" and a Woman's Day "Editor's Desk Pick" in 2017, as well as IndieNext, Library Reads, Winter OKRA Picks and WNBA Great Group Reads 2018 Selection. The novel was a finalist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize 2017 and for the Southern Book Prize 2018. I live with my husband in a former cotton-mill town in upstate South Carolina, where I keep bees and garden passionately.