Book Lover—Researching Them, Writing Them, Reading Them

After a career in sales and marketing and raising two boys active in sports, right through the college level, I asked the age-old question, Now what? I didn’t spend long looking for my answer. I found it within the return hits from a genealogy search on my great-great-grandfather, William S. Peirce, Esquire. From FamousAmericans.net: He took an active part in founding the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia.

Inspired by that line, more research ensued, and a story and characters formed. The early graduates of the Woman’s Medical College have remained in the shadows. Their stories needed to be told. With a love of history, I balanced a need for authenticity and details with a flair to create emotional connections to fictional characters.

While my family has roots in Philadelphia, I am a Boston girl through and through, from my accent to the cans of baked beans in my pantry, to the New England Patriots flag that hangs over our driveway every fall. I grew up outside of Boston and remained in Massachusetts, graduating with a B.A. in Psychology from Wheaton College, at the time, an all-women’s college. At Wheaton, I developed a fond appreciation of the supportive relationships established between students, faculty, and alumnae and a heightened awareness of female-centric issues. Both directed my writing of The Unlocked Path.