Interview Questions Answered

1. You wear a lot of hats — writer, photographer, graphic designer. How do you keep all three in balance?

Honestly, I'm not sure "balance" is quite the right word. Writing and photography feel like the most natural expressions of how I see the world, but design has a way of making itself useful in everything I do. They're not really competing — they're more like different tools I reach for depending on what a project needs. The design background informs how I compose a photograph. The photography informs how I think about pacing in a piece of writing. They talk to each other more than they fight.

2. How Did You End Up in Phoenix?

I came for personal reasons and stayed for the desert. I'd spent years in Michigan and reached a point where I needed to see the sun again. Phoenix delivered on that, and somewhere along the way the landscape got under my skin. The light here is unlike anything I'd experienced — the way it hits the saguaros in the late afternoon, the texture of dry washes, the strange beauty of things that have learned to survive in the heat. It shows up in my photography constantly, and it's starting to show up in my fiction too.

3. You write both nonfiction and fiction. Are they scratching different itches?

Completely different itches. I've been a fiction reader my whole life — that's where my heart lives. But nonfiction has been where I've built my publishing credits, and frankly, it pays more reliably at this stage. Fiction is where I go when I want to explore something I can't quite say any other way. Nonfiction is where I go when I have something specific to say and want to say it clearly. I need both.

4. Tell us about bees' knees creatives.

My husband Sean and I both have multiple creative income streams — his novels, my articles, photography, design work, consulting — and at some point we needed a better way to manage all of it under one roof. Bees' Knees Creatives became that structure. It lets us operate as a proper studio rather than two freelancers bumping into each other in the same office. And we like bees. That part was non-negotiable.

5. How does your design background influence your other work?

It's probably most visible in my photography — though interestingly, I came to design after photography, not before. Learning design formally gave me a vocabulary for things I'd been doing intuitively with a camera: composition, color contrast, negative space, the relationship between elements in a frame. It sharpened instincts I already had. In writing it's subtler, but I think it shows up in how I think about structure — how a piece is organized, what gets emphasis, what gets white space.

6. What kind of stories do you find yourself drawn to as a writer?

I keep gravitating toward magical realism — stories that are grounded in recognizable, often quiet human experience but with something strange underneath. I'm drawn to the moment when the ordinary world slips slightly sideways. I think it's because the most interesting emotional truths are sometimes easier to access when you're not trying to be strictly realistic about them.

7. What are you looking for when you pick up a camera?

It depends on the day. I shoot wildlife, people, products, and a lot of the Sonoran Desert — each one requires a completely different headspace. With wildlife I'm waiting for the moment; with products I'm building the moment from scratch. What they have in common is that I'm always looking for something that makes me stop — a quality of light, an unexpected juxtaposition, a composition that feels inevitable once you see it. I want the viewer to feel what made me press the shutter.

8. You volunteer with Liberty Wildlife — how does that connect to your creative life?

I've loved animals my entire life, so volunteering with a wildlife rehabilitation organization felt like a natural extension of who I am. What I didn't fully anticipate was what it would do for my photography. Getting that close to raptors and reptiles — animals most people never see outside of a zoo — gives me access to subjects and moments that most photographers never get. It feeds the creative work constantly. The two things just belong together for me.

9. Your macro and invertebrate photography has gotten attention — what drew you to that world?

Honestly, I'd always been fascinated by macro photography but never knew quite how to approach it. Then a friend sold me a 90mm macro lens, and that was it — I discovered an entirely different world hiding in plain sight. My first day shooting with it, I learned that bees take naps in flowers in the afternoon. Once you see something like that, you can't unsee it. I became completely captivated by subjects most people walk right past, and it's opened up a whole vocabulary in my photography that I'm still exploring.

10. What are you working on now?

I'm currently waiting on editorial feedback on a middle-grade novel — that particular stage of the process requires its own special kind of patience. In the meantime, I'm continuing my magazine work and actively developing my photography portfolio. There's always something in progress, which is either a blessing or a curse depending on the day.