Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, I eventually found my way out west, where I fell in love with the crisp air, expansive skies, long horizons, and steadfast communities that quietly laid the foundation of the American dream.

And then I fell in love with a cowboy.

If it weren’t for my passion for writing, I would undoubtedly make a full-time go of cowgirling.

My family splits our time between Colorado and western Nebraska, where my husband's family has owned a ranch since the 1880s. The landscape, the culture, and the particular silence and scale of the Sandhills are not research. They are my home. The ocean still flows through these veins, but the stories of the American West have captured my heart and mind.

I am particularly captivated by the women who supported and silently built these towns — driven by their own sense of adventure and wild abandonment of societal norms.

The wild women. On the wild edge of our history, yesterday and today.

My foundation is in the craft: a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Florida State University, where I was awarded the George Yost Award for undergraduate personal essay, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Denver. I spent years as a journalist with my own column before moving into communications — five years as a publicist, ten as a Creative and Content Director — learning every way a story can land, and what it takes to make one stick.