Writer

Public Speaking Coach

Director/Producer

Magazine Editor

Yes, I write for a living and also help people with public speaking and presentations. I've had a long career creating programs for television and won Emmys for my TV shows for kids.

I've been fortunate to travel all over the world teaching classes to engineers and business execs, had a dream assignment working on two Food Network shows, and even trailed along with one U.S. President as field producer for a television crew.

Either I'm blessed with a wide range of interests and experiences--or totally incapable of sticking with one thing.

This I know for sure: I love tackling new work, learning about complex subjects, solving problems, and helping people get the message across with simplicity and humor.

It all started when....

a girl who grew up on a tobacco farm in eastern North Carolina decided she wanted to be a sportscaster. She landed a scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, majored in filmmaking and English, and decided that interviewing jocks (though she loves them) wasn't exactly for her. So she pursued a career as a writer/producer and that took her to her first full-time job, at an NBC affiliate in Columbia, South Carolina.

At WIS-TV, she worked her way up to marketing director and special projects producer, all the while studying for her master's in creative writing at the University of South Carolina. At USC, she wrote poems in classes taught by author James Dickey (of Deliverance fame). He encouraged her to quit her job, bag groceries, and write poetry full time. Viewing this as the only choice that could actually pay less than television, she decided to keep her job at WIS--and worked there for nearly 15 years.

At last, she did leave, for a career as an independent writer and producer.  Since then, she's field produced live coverage for national news networks, written for the smartest and funniest Food Network show of all time, and scripted and directed a series of PBS television specials for tweens about the environment, all of which have won Emmys.

In 2000, she began working with The Buckley School of Public Speaking, founded by veteran speaker Reid Buckley, brother of William F. Buckley, Jr. After Reid's death in 2014, she agreed to become the school's co-director in order to preserve the school and expand on his plans.

She also leads seminars, writes speeches, coaches speakers, addresses conferences and travels to locations around the world to teach communications programs.

Her writing includes a wide range of work, from award-winning magazine features about hunger and foster care to lighthearted fiction for children.

Her story Porcupine Saves the Dance is the basis of an original narrated chamber music concert (think small-scale Peter and the Wolf) that's been performed at schools and museums. She's created interactive programs for middle school students, and she wrote Founding Feathers, an animated "quill story" of the U.S. Constitution, funded by Knight Ridder for use in schools.

From 2006-2014, she was editor of skirt! magazine in Columbia. Recently, she's written a documentary series about World War II heroes that's aired on PBS and is working a second series about heroes of the Vietnam War.

While she loves her work, she also enjoys travel, cooking, playing screechy bluegrass tunes on the fiddle, following Gamecock women's basketball, training for masters track and field, sailing, playing tennis, and drinking really good coffee on her porch.

Here’s a look back at that time I thought I was writing a home renovation article and a history-making supreme court justice showed up.

Jasper magazine was very kind to write about my work life.

Love my bungalow and my office and was happy to be part of this article on home offices.

Find one of my poems in Jenny magazine (no relation).