So, what do you want to know? I grew up with two parents and two brothers on the Upper West Side of New York City . I went to Public School 166 and The Franklin School, which I hated. I spent summers upstate, in a bungalow colony called Reynolds Hills, which was founded by my grandparents and their Eastern European immigrant buddies. I also went to camps Sunningdale (dear to my heart) and Truda on and near Sebago Lake in Maine . I graduated from The High School of Art & Design, which was like the movie Fame only with fashion design and cartooning students. I was an illustration major and played Babe Williams in our school production of The Pajama Game.

Those are the key facts of my childhood.

I started my career in publishing right out of high school. My first job was at P.W. Communications, a medical publisher. My first published illustration was a stipple rendering of cancer of the uterus. I got an apartment in the East Village and spent a lot of time at CBGB and Max's Kansas City . Some nights I was a disco queen at Xenon and sundry gay bars and wore four-inch heels and Qiana.

In about 1978, I took my first cross-country trip, with two girlfriends in a blue Plymouth Duster. I saw my first cornfields, my first mountains, the Ramones hanging around the pool at the Tropicana and the Dictators at the Whiskey A Go-Go. After that, I took several month-long Greyhound bus trips around the country. I stayed with anyone who would have me (friends and friends of friends) and once slept on a bus depot floor. I also slept on a gymnasium floor once but the next day I saw Mount Rushmore so it was worth it. That was my introduction to travel.

In the early 1980s, after being let go from a job at Fairchild Publications, I said "what the hell," threw a bunch of crap into a VW Rabbit and moved to Dallas , Texas . If you want to know all about that, buy my book, The Yankee Chick's Survival Guide to Texas. I didn't mean to stay but here I am.

Working as a freelance paste-up artist, a now-obsolete skill, landed me at The Dallas Morning News and eventually a job as a page designer. One day, an editor who knew I wrote as a hobby said, "Hey, why don't you try writing this design story?" I did and the angels sang. The editors liked it, too. I went on to become a writer and assistant editor in the features and travel sections through the late '80s and early '90s. I left the paper in 1994 and have been a freelance writer ever since. I finally attended the University of Texas at Dallas in my 40s and graduated summa cum laude with a BA in psychology.

I live in Dallas , Texas with my husband Tom, who owns a picture framing shop and plays guitar. We cater to the needs of a changing cast of dogs.

Any questions?