A Hoosier (Indiana) native, I spent part of my upbringing in Japan before completing my education in the Midwest. I have been working in psychiatry for over 15 years in Seattle, where I maintain a private practice.

Fiction writing stemmed from my desire for a creative outlet, as well as simply a way to de-stress! After writing thousands of pages of medical notes, I wanted to shift to storytelling and putting my personality on paper.

I am in the final stages of editing my debut novel, The Making of a Psychiatrist, which I hope to share with the world. I also am writing an untitled domestic suspense novel. As a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, I have partnered with amazing women authors, including in workshops and a critique group, and also have attended multiple classes through Hugo House, a literary arts organization in Seattle.

Though I write fiction, I also draw inspiration from the prose of nonfiction and memoir, including Thomas Fuller’s The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory and Melinda French Gates’ The Next Day: Transition, Change, and Moving Forward. Some of my favorite fiction from the last few years have included Garth Greenwell’s Small Rain, Amy Zhang’s YA novels, and anything by Jasmine Guillory or Kevin Kwan.

A graduate of Indiana University and the University of Michigan Medical School, I am a board-certified child and adult psychiatrist. I live in Seattle with my family, including two boisterous boys, for whom I keep resisting getting a dog. “Not until we are done traveling!”