My Story

I was born in Calgary, Alberta, where the winters are cold! Mom suffered from recurring bouts of pleurisy and double pneumonia, so when I was seven, we moved to Greater Vancouver, where it’s rainy but warm.

I loved being read to, and could read on my own by age three. That’s how my love of books began.

I put myself through University working as a typesetter, using one of the earliest computerized typesetting machines. That’s when my love of typography and graphic design began!

Back in 1978, my then-boyfriend and I bought an Exidy Sorcerer, the second personal computer ever sold in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The storage device was an audio-cassette deck. And that’s when my love of computers began.

Although I have long considered myself Psychologically Unemployable – in other words, a born entrepreneur – in my younger years I worked at a number of software startups, as a technical writer, copywriter, and creative services manager.

I have been building websites and self-publishing since the 80s (gasp)! My first online sale was in 1999 when I sold my book, The Survivor’s Guide to a man in Mexico, who bought it for his girlfriend. I think they heard my excited hollering all the way to Acapulco.

Fave project ever? That’s easy: the cookbook my late sister Toni and I self-published, Food from the Heart.

Next favourite? Whatever I’m working on at the moment!

My husband and I now live in beautiful Victoria, BC (or as Bob likes to say, “on an island in the Pacific”) where our 12-pound Shih Tzu/Bichon, Teddy B. Martin, rules the roost.

Thanks for stopping by!