I'm really not the rugged horse-back riding gal the adjacent photo might make you believe (ok, yes, that is a donkey, but we'd signed up for a North Rim Grand Canyon horseback riding tour, and naturally, I got to ride the ass.)  While I do like horses and my neighborhood is adjacent to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, which means horses are my neigh-bors, I just don't do well with the dust. I can't steer them and I'm too much of a control freak.  But I DO like hiking and kayaking and have explored 33 of America's National Parks with my family from Maine to Washington State, from Virginia to Hawaii and all across the west.

 

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, I was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina and went to college in Chapel Hill. I moved to California several weeks after graduation, having never been further west than Tennessee. I resembled Elly May Clampet getting off the plane in my floral print dress with my cowboy boots, two suitcases and $200 to my name. My first jobs in Los Angeles were as an Au Pair and as a Production Assistant. I began my career in television as a temp at KHJ-TV and eventually became part of the marketing team that developed the call letter change campaign for KCAL.9 and supported PRIME 9 NEWS. I was Marketing Manager for Buena Vista Television before restructuring my life to spend more time home with my children.

 

For twenty years, I worked as the Assistant Director of UNC-Hollywood, an Entertainment Industry Internship program tied to the Communication Department at UNC-Chapel Hill. I've volunteered in the schools and served on local non-profit boards, helping to raise millions of $ for organizations that inspire me while raising two inspirational humans.

 

In 2014, I took a chance and shared one of my stories on stage for the first time at Story Salon. I've since shared stories across Southern California with The Moth, Expressing Motherhood, WordNOW!, Breaker/Broken, Off My Head, 10 by 10, The Otter Story Hour, LitCrawl LA, Backstory, Flappers Comedy Hour, Tales by the Sea and Storytime.

I also direct and producing my own shows, raising over $60,000 to date for local non-profits through JAM CREATIVE. 

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I served for over four years on the Burbank Cultural Arts Commission and am currently on the Board of the Burbank Human Relations Council. My memoir, Champagne Girl in a Budweiser Family can be ordered at independent bookstores or on line!

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