I never meant to become a writer.

For most of my life, I was a lawyer. Then, at fifty, my husband of thirty-two years died, and the life I’d carefully built disappeared overnight.

Writing became the way I figured out what came next.

These days, I write about grief, dating after widowhood, aging, reinvention, family, sobriety, and the strange business of trying to build a meaningful life when you can be grown up but sometimes miss being a kid. 

My work is often serious, but I think life is funniest when it’s hardest, so humor tends to sneak in. For example, dating at midlife was an exercise in both hilarity and pathos. 

My essays have appeared in The New York Times Modern Love, HuffPost, Reader’s Digest, Woman’s Day, Next Avenue, and other publications. I was a practicing attorney for over ten years which lends my writing an acrid tone of bitterness and irony. I earned an MFA in Creative Writing at age fifty-six as part of writing my book, proving it’s never too late to become a person you were supposed to be all along.

My memoir, Available As Is: A Midlife Widow’s Search for Love, won the 2024 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Aging, Death & Dying. It’s the story of losing my husband, finding my voice, surviving online dating, and discovering that starting over is equal parts heartbreaking, ridiculous, and unexpectedly hopeful.

When I’m not writing, you’ll usually find me hiking the hills around Northern California, practicing yoga, drinking coffee and avoiding house projects. I also spend time wondering why adulthood turned out to involve so many eye drops, estate plans, and worrying about my genius dad who’s now 96.

If you’re looking for honest stories about second acts—with a little dark humor along the way—you’ve come to the right place.