My first efforts at writing were poems that my dad had his secretary type up, put in plastic sleeves and insert in a binder. They rhymed and usually scanned well-that's the best I can say about them. I moved in to a journalistic phase that lasted through graduate school, writing articles, essays, editorials. And some song lyrics. It was after leaving graduate school that I focused on creative writing. I wrote short stories, mostly science fiction-probably because I'd just discovered the science fiction section in the library and was devouring the books.

But one story was inspired by my graduate work in medieval studies. The rejection letters regarding that story were much chattier and far more encouraging than I'd received regarding the science fiction pieces. Still, they were rejections. I was beginning to believe I would never get published.

I found a job as an editor of research publications at the University of Washington. But in the early mornings before donning my editor's hat I worked on a novel. It wasn't published, but editors and agents encouraged me to try again. Perhaps I was nanve, but it gave me great hope. I set to work spinning the historical short story that had received chatty rejections in to a novel, The Apothecary Rose .

The rest is history.