New York state is full of wonderful, tiny towns. GA was born and lived in one until her family moved to the Laurel Highlands area in the center of Pennsylvania and that’s where she’s lived most of her life. Except for an exceptional few decades on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
She took courses at Penn State University, but earned real credits just living life. Like we all do.
Writing is how she relives the best parts and dresses up—or down—the least bits.
As a child, the world around her was books. The teen years ... she’ll leave that to the Young Adult writers out there. Finally, all grown up, is there a better teacher for the use of the exact word than theater? The precise word.
That’s the first piece of advice GA would give any artist—writer, musician, painter—go act. Get on stage in front of an audience. You'll find out fast what works and what doesn't work for the people who laid down good money to be entertained by you. You’ll have an audience eventually, so it's a great place to start.
Nothing like the sound of crickets to get you to step up your game!
It gets cold in Pennsylvania. In her current, and upcoming, Murder Off-Screen series, GA will take you to where it’s always sunny and warm. In spite of the shady characters that threaten to ruin everyone’s day.
Her main character, Jaqie Shanahan, is a conglomeration of all the interesting—and not so—people she’s met. The dog, Doofus, is completely GA’s dog, Dexter. José Gecko. Well, he shared a condo in St. Augustine and a very special boat that sailed for a magical time with a magical captain on the Chesapeake Bay.
In that part at the beginning of every work of fiction that claims things are made-up and coincidental, they are. But GA has sailed the Chesapeake, crewed aboard a 140-footer in the Caribbean, met the elephants and their man, taken her motorcycle where—quite frankly—girls should not go.
And would do it all again.