My Story

I started taking flying lessons at the age of fourteen after my father bought me a ride in an airplane. I flew solo in an airplane at sixteen before I had my driver's license. A class at the University of New Hampshire, where I earned a B.S. degree in business, got me interested in writing. My first piece was published in AOPA Pilot. 

​

I flew for a small regional airline until they went out of business, and returned to graduate school at the University of North Carolina and Simmons College in physical therapy after my second daughter was born with a rare genetic disorder. I became a disability advocate and started writing about parenting a child with disabilities. I worked with a therapeutic horseback riding program.

​

Then I returned to aviation, working as a simulator instructor on the Airbus for a major airline, becoming a professor of aeronautical science for a small college, and as part of the flight test team for a new airborne collision avoidance system developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory. I returned to graduate school to earn a M.A. in science writing at Johns Hopkins University. I am now a freelance writer. I can no longer fly due to a disability from a chronic health condition and I am working on a memoir about my flying experiences.

​

​

​