Having grown up with a fascination for the night skies, I decided at a young age I wanted to either work in an observatory or design planetarium programs. I graduated from Northern Arizona University with a bachelor’s in physics and an emphasis in astronomy.

Life and a recession had other plans for me, though. I started teaching physical science and college algebra while I completed more physics courses at Central Missouri University. Once I made it to Silicon Valley, I was ready to teach day-long seminars on mass spectrometry. When another recession hit, I took a position at a two-way radio company, which later led to a documentation position at a company developing the early protocols for cellular telephones and transportation information systems. After that, at Silicon Graphics, I worked on software and hardware manuals for 3D graphics workstations and did contract work for a number of start-ups involved in developing rendering engines and computer games—a perfect prelude for my position as a technical writer and trainer at Pacific Data Images/DreamWorks.

Documenting animation tools in a studio environment with creative geeks was an eye-opener. The extremely smart and artistic crew was passionate about television commercials, special effects, and computer-graphics-animated movies. By the time I made the move to a quieter life in Cody, Wyoming, I had paid witness to the creative and technical pipeline necessary to bring a number of projects to the silver screen, including Shrek and Shrek 2. For the past eleven years, I’ve been running the front office of a print shop. I use many of the tools I used in my earlier positions, but now I’m more involved in the print production of documents like those I once wrote.

At night, I write historical romance novels that are set during England’s Regency era. Years ago, writing fiction was a hobby—a creative outlet for the days spent writing dry technical manuals. Now it’s my passion. The amount of time required to research this particular era often takes longer than actually writing a book, but learning about the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the people of that time has proven invaluable in developing the fictional situations and characters that make up my stories.

And like one of my favorite characters, I still set up the telescope I bought in high school and watch in wonder the dark skies above. Who knows—I might yet write a planetarium show.