I started getting paid for my writing when I was a 16-year-old correspondent from my high school for the local newspaper. From there it was on to a degree in journalism from Michigan State University, then a couple of jobs as a reporter in New Haven, Conn. Along the way I married the editor of our college newspaper and moved to Minneapolis. I was a magazine editor for a few years. While raising three kids I sandwiched in work as a freelance writer. When my youngest went to school I returned to the daily grind as a reporter covering health care. My last newspaper job was at the St. Paul Pioneer Press where I collaborated on a year's worth of articles that won the other guy a Pulitzer Prize. A couple years later when the Pioneer Press refused to pay for my car which was firebombed while I was covering a riot, I decided it was time to get a new gig, and began writing fiction, for the first time. Three books, three short stories and four grandsons later, I'm delighted to be an author.