**A widely published freelance writer — magazine articles, creative nonfiction, short stories, novels, and plays.
**An excellent writing coach, teacher of writing, and consultant with years of experience.
**A former first-reader for a major New York City publisher.
**An award-winning playwright.

Please read on to learn more …

At the age of seven, I wrote my first novel — a story about a brave little boy who was a big-game hunter in Africa and who rode around on a pet elephant. The novel was nine pages long, written in pencil on a Big Indian pad.

Not knowing much about the publishing business at the time, I rolled it up, stuffed it in a bottle, and buried it in a stretch of desert sand in front of our house in an isolated place called Mint Canyon, in Southern California. Some day, I thought, somebody might be digging around in the desert, and they'd find it and read it. At that time this was all I knew about how to get published.

As an only child in that lonely place, I filled my days wandering among the sagebrush and cactus, inventing imaginary companions and making up stories.

Later we moved to Manhattan Beach, California, and my first job was sweeping up in a store that sold magician's supplies and working for the owner as the onstage assistant in his magic act. I began to perform magic tricks myself for anyone who would "take a card, any card," and doing magic felt a lot like making up stories. My hero was Harry Houdini, who escaped from handcuffs and locked trunks — I was escaping, whenever I could, from the boring constraints of reality.

By acting in high school plays I learned that the theatre was another terrific way to escape the strict bonds of reality. I majored in drama in college. After serving in the United States Navy as a jet mechanic aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, I went on to earn my master's degree in drama.

I taught for a few years at the college level. I enjoyed the teaching, but I couldn't stand the campus politics. I escaped from that world by accepting a job as an actor at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, a job that came complete with a major pay cut and zero job security. Later, I caught a Greyhound to New York City to pursue a career in professional theatre. Houdini didn't have anything on me!

Along with lots and lots of auditions, I worked off and on as an actor and also as a cab driver; a clerk in Foul Play, a bookstore that specialized in mystery/suspense books; and as the morning man in Maurizio's Café in Greenwich Village — I still brew a mean cup of espresso!

In a dry patch between acting jobs I wrote two magazine articles. I sent them out and sold them — actually receiving both acceptances on the same day. I decided to let the acting business and the world of New York theatre somehow get along without me (they're doing just fine), and I started writing full time. After those first two acceptances there were plenty of rejection slips, but I was hooked. I realized that I could actually have fun writing about subjects that interested me, inventing imaginary companions and putting them into short stories and novels, and performing verbal magic tricks — while making money at the same time!

Over the years I have sold articles to a wide variety of publications, including Modern Maturity, The International Herald Tribune, Grit, Dramatics, People on Parade, Toastmaster Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, The Writer, several travel and in-flight magazines, and many more. I was New York correspondent for Writer's Digest for a time, and I wrote numerous how-to articles for them. I accepted numerous assignments for The People's Almanac, The Book of Lists, and Sex Lives of the Rich and Famous.

I also started to write full-length fiction, publishing two romance novels, Chanson d'Amour and Passion's Hue (both written as Anna McClure), and then three mystery/suspense novels: Kiss/Kill, The Eyes of Torie Webster, and (under the name Rex Hunter) Extraction. I wrote numerous short mystery stories for Woman's World, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and Rod Serling's Twilight Zone.

I began consulting and teaching and discovered that I had a gift for it, and that I loved helping other writers achieve their goals. I was a teacher for the Writer's Digest School, conducted workshops for Katherine Falk's "First Saturday" program in New York City, and for two years I co-led Lawrence Block's "Write For Your Life" seminars in cities across the country. I also worked as a first-reader for a major New York City publisher.

Starting in 1989, I satisfied my long-time goal of living in another country by spending several years in San Miguel de Allende, a beautiful town in the mountains of central Mexico. As part of this community of artists and writers, I wrote and also led classes in fiction, nonfiction, and a workshop called "Life Story," helping people write about their lives.

I returned to New York City in 2000, and began to write plays. Since then I’ve been writing, coaching writers, conducting online writing workshops, creating plays, and writing theatre reviews. Recently, two of my plays, Starfish Memories and Stroller Wars, won first prizes in major international playwriting competitions, and both received successful productions in regional theatres. My play Mary Gets Her Brain Restrung has been produced twice in New York City. My memoir essay “The Other Father” was published in The Gettysburg Review, and chosen as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays of 2002.

I now divide my time among New York City, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.