“If you can dream it, do it.” – Walt Disney

When my son was two years old and we lived in Orange County, California, I purchased season tickets to Disneyland, and we visited the park regularly every week. Everyone thought I was going for my son. While he most certainly enjoyed the Disney experience, I secretly cherished going where I could escape from real life to a fantastic magical world.  A place where all dreams can true. O...

My life sometimes feels like it has been a series of “I almost made it, but…” moments. 

These times were rife with ‘obstacles’, which at the time when I was going through it, felt negative, impossible or horribly disappointing to me… definitely not the ‘gifts’ that I know them to be now. 

There were four defining “almost, but…” moments that had a major influence on the Protogenesis book series:

• “Almost Climbed a Mountain, but...

Designer Rouli and jewelry maker Peter produced fine jewellery for exclusive customers until they opened their doors to the public of Athens with a store in Kifissia back in 1992. With Peters attention to detail and Rouli’s love and care for each customer, Anatol soon became a must jewellery store for every occasion: both high end silver jewellery with semiprecious stones as well as timeless gold and diamond pieces, including...

“I felt so nice that this American writer chose me to inspire her character that I wanted to do something special for her and the book.  Something extraordinary.” - Kostas Martakis, Greek Star (Artist, Singer, Actor, Model)

When I finally met Greek Star, Kostas Martakis, I knew there was something special about him.  He has this warm, charismatic energy that makes it easy for me to see why so many people in Greece lov...

By the time we arrived at our hotel, my mind was spinning with excitement at my imagined ‘game’ and eager to learn more about this Mystery Man. I immediately broke all of my rules about not learning more about the real life people who inspired my characters, and went to Google, entering in the key words that I had used many months ago to find his picture in the first place...

“dark hair, blue eyes male, actor or model...”

But no...

During the Summer of 2015, I was totally inspired and every day, I woke up with an important mission: write Protogenesis. In order to maintain consistency with my descriptions of the characters while I wrote, I followed a technique that I learned from screenwriting which was to use Google to randomly search and select one photo for each character from the internet that represented to me a visual snapshot of not only the “look”...

So how does one go about creating a seven book novel series? It’s a daunting task! You just read the ‘Birth’ of how this series came about from Hannah’s blog. While there have been many ups and downs in this writing journey, the one thing that has kept me going is a feeling in my gut – a ‘knowing’ - that beyond any doubt, I already know that this book and series will be successful. In fact, in my mind, the entire book series h...

When I finished reading my Aunt’s new story outline, I have to say that I was completely disappointed. This wasn’t my story!! The work that she had done was nothing like what I had in mind.  I felt as if she had just taken my idea and twisted it into a foreign stranger that I could barely recognize. I could feel this feeling starting to bubble up in me and there it was...BOOM!  The fireworks started...I was so angry...!

I...

My Aunt Alysia has been a key part of my life and a great source of inspiration and encouragement for me.  Our wonderful connection and understanding of each other began at a very young age.  From the time I was born and on, she has been a doting aunt and has always been there for me, wanting only the best for me. Her adoration for me has shown itself in many ways.

During her travels as a consultant, she would always buy m...

In the beginning…once upon a time… 

Ummm, okay, where to start? 

I’m a story teller.  I make stuff up for a living. That’s my job now.  Thank God, because with my story telling ‘gifts’, my career choices were limited to 1) con artist, 2) politician, 3) fiction writer, 4) committed to an insane asylum.  I think my mother is happy that I chose option #3!

Perhaps this is why I’m all tripped up in writing my ‘real life’ sto...