Welcome to this website! I am a full-time free-lance writer with 17 years of parish staff experience with small groups, RCIA, adult faith formation, and social justice ministries. I have been a passionate believer in small church communities since the first RENEW arrived in Minnesota in the late 1980s. My husband Jim and I have been in small groups ever since, and most recently have helped establish small groups in a brand new parish in a Minneapolis suburb, where we lived for two winters, and our new permanent home parish in Wisconsin.

I was born in Newark, NJ, grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and graduated from Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, with a major in English and minor in journalism, and from the University of Minnesota with an M.A. in English. I worked in advertising and public relations agencies and as the director of student recruitment for the University of Minnesota's 45,000-student Minneapolis campus, and I've been a free-lance writer for most of my adult life. My magazine articles have appeared in Minnesota Parent, Catechumenate and Church magazines. I've completed my second novel, a mystery (literary agents and publishers can form a line to the right).

From 1989-2006, I was the Pastoral Associate for Adult Faith Formation at St. Rita's Catholic Church, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, a suburban parish of 1,600 families. My ministries there included small groups (the basis of St. Rita's adult faith formation); RCIA, which my husband Jim and I co-facilitated; the social justice and sister parish ministries, and large-group adult faith formation opportunities. I began writing the Gathered In His Name meeting guides in 1999 for the 25-30 small groups then at St. Rita's. St. Anthony Messenger Press  published the first eight meeting guides and a Leader's Guide in spring of 2006. More titles are now under consideration.

In the summer of 2007 we moved to the tiny town (344 people) of Winter, Wisconsin. We have three amazing children, Chris, Becca, and Mark, who live on the East and West Coasts.