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I started writing FRACTURED TIDE while I was taking an advanced open water scuba class out at the Scuba Ranch near Dallas. Our group dove in this uberscary area of the lake called The Silo, which is not much more than a sixty-foot-deep muddy sinkhole where light can’t reach. It was terrifying. After that, I got the chance to dive off the coast of Key Largo on this monster wreck called the Speigel Grove. This time I got clear water, coral-encrusted railings, and schools of snapper. That wreck is beautiful, but it’s also a little creepy down there. The 90-foot depth keeps the place in perpetual twilight, and the empty hallways of the ship feel haunted. Those experiences got inside my head, and over the last three years, I wrote a book. For the record, there are no recorded sightings of sea monsters on the Speigel Grove (yet).

Just in! I’ve got a new book coming out fall of 2023. This one takes place in the desert, rather than the ocean, but haunted water, AGAIN, plays a big role. Teenage psychic + haunted safe = trouble for the small Texas town of Gypsum. The working title has always been THE DARK PLACE, but the end title will be…..yeah, I have no idea. Stay tuned!

My short fiction and poetry has been published in several journals, including Orca Literary Journal, Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, Typishly, The Lyric, and Raintown Review.  I won the 2018 Frisco First Chapter Contest for FRACTURED TIDE, which gave me enough confidence to pitch the novel to Amy Bishop, an agent with Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret. She said yes, and I’ve been celebrating ever since.

I’m also fortunate to be a part of some great professional organizations: International Thriller Writers, Horror Writers Association, Editorial Freelancers Association, and the wonderful DFW Writers’ Workshop.

I live in Fort Worth, Texas, and when I’m not writing, you can find me watching B-horror movies, scuba diving, or taking care of chickens. My husband, Russell Lutz, is a writer as well, so if you want to read some awesome science fiction, pickup The Department of Off World Affairs or Iota Cycle.

I didn’t know I wanted to write about haunted water, but it’s a theme I return to every time I write a short story or start a new novel. If it’s got a tentacle, or a water ghost, or a near-drowning, I’m probably going to write about it.