History is the stuff of life and a true love of mine. I’ve relished writing about history for many national and regional publications. As a features writer for Country Home magazine, I wrote award-winning articles about lighthouses, lacemaking, pioneer cabins, ethnic crafts, frontier gardening, and more. As a freelancer, I wrote about the rugged journey of blue jeans for Connoisseur, the history of billiards for Brunswick’s 150th corporate anniversary, and Wisconsin statehood for Exclusively Yours. I edited a "History of the World" textbook series and award-winning children’s books like Salcott, The Indian Boy. But nothing is more thrilling than writing historical fiction. My novel, Blood to Rubies, has been a haunting and heady journey exploring the world of the Nez Perce Indians and pioneers in the 1870s frontier, the history of immigrants and ex-slaves escaping starvation, poverty and persecution to pursue their dreams in a new world. There is heartbreak, too: the diaspora of hundreds of native tribes, the decimation of animal species, forests and natural resources, and the shocking injustices in a wild, frontier world.