I grew up mostly in San Marcos, Texas, (with a brief time away in Washington D.C and Australia) graduated from San Marcos High School, attended Baylor and Rice, moved for a while to New Braunfels, Texas, and now live in Austin. One of the great blessings of my childhood was having a mother who read to my brother and sister and me for hours every night, long after we could read for ourselves. Those nights of listening transported us to foreign places and other centuries and allowed us to connect with characters living lives in stark contrast to our own. This was a great gift my mother gave us.

I've written six novels, including The Night Journal, which received The Spur Award from Western Writers of America and the Willa Literary Award from Women Writing the West, Monday, Monday, which received the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and was named a Best Fiction Book of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, and The Which Way Tree, which received The Willa Literary Award and is currently in development for film. The Madstone will be published in November of 2023.

I'm a slow, slow reader (one of those people you see in public places staring at pages and moving their lips,) and I'll be giving most books on Goodreads a rating of four or five stars, because that many hours spent together creates a certain loyalty. If a book doesn't capture me I usually set it aside; mostly what you'll see here are books I've loved.