Sandra’s Story

My life as an author began the first time I snuck out under a favorite apple tree as a kid with a notebook and a head full of stories.

Dad told me the nearby Wabash connected to other rivers, then to the sea, and from there to the whole world. I longed to read about the places those waters touched. As luck would have it, I got to visit several of them when I became an adult. Along the way, I wrote ideas, stories, and poems.

A college degree and a move to Arizona were quickly followed by family, career and later a doctorate from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. My favorite studies there included anthropology and some experience—not nearly long enough to suit me—of working on a dig in the area. It was at NAU I learned archaeology was an early 20^th century pioneer in hiring professionally trained women to work alongside men. Many American of the women came from a progressive anthropology department at Columbia University. Possible stories swirled in my head.

One of those tales took me to Mesopotamia during the Great War in 1917. The book became Crimson Veils. To be truthful, the research was so much fun, it took all the self-discipline I could pull up from my toenails to stop reading and start writing. Of course, then the characters came alive, and it was great fun.

This novel, currently being submitted to agents, is the first in a series involving fictitious archaeologist, Eleanor Cabot. Sometimes I think of Eleanor as Indiana Jones’ kick-ass auntie. Other times, she strikes me as every woman, carving out her place in a world that mostly censors boat rockers with boot heels.

I live in the Phoenix area near my children and their families and still enjoy travel and history. A member of the Historical Novel Society and other author and critique groups, I interact with other writers quite a bit. Oddly enough, all five of my siblings are fine writers. I guess that’s what happens on an apple orchard. Everyone stakes out their own tree.