About

Love. Lies. Zombies. Spies. Welcome to Unbound. 

This journey started with a dream. 

Literally, a dream. 

Like Mary Shelley, whose nightmare fostered the creation of Frankenstein’s monster, and Stephenie Meyer, who—love it or hate it—conjured up the Twilight Saga after an enthralling night’s sleep, I too was inspired by a dream. 

In March of 2010, while I was a high school English teacher, I had a vivid nightmare that remains branded in my thoughts to this day. The dream began at the school (because even in my sleep I can’t escape from work, ha!) It started with a jarring event that threw the campus into a bumbling mass of pandemonium, and then a dystopian world unfolded. 

The rest of the dream played out in a whirlwind of apocalyptic chaos, espionage, and high action adventure. Several times throughout the night I woke abruptly with my heart pounding and my thoughts spinning, but it seemed my subconscious was determined to follow the story to the end. Every time I sank back into restless slumber, I was once again trapped in the fascinating and frightening world my mind had created. 

The next morning I couldn’t stop seeing images from the nightmare. Even though the bulk of the dream had been downright terrifying, I couldn’t help but think, Man, this would make an awesome story! 

I hashed out the details of the dream to my husband, whose dispassionate response was, “Cool. You should write it down.”  

Though he seemed nonchalant at best—didn’t he know this was a life transforming dream?—he doggedly hounded me through the next four years to complete the story. I would come home from work, exhausted and overwhelmed with hundreds of essays to grade, and he would ask, “So, are you going to get that hour of writing in tonight?” A lot of times the answer was Nope. I’m going to sit on the couch, watch mindless reality TV, and eat my weight in ice cream. Maybe if I’d been as dedicated to the cause as he was, it wouldn’t have taken four years to write the first draft.  

Well, after countless nights of marathon typing, I finished the first rough draft of the novel in 2014. I then wrote accompanying short stories to take place in the world of my dream as I edited and revised the full-length novel. . . which took another 5 years.  

Now, finally, I’m ready to launch Unbound and the companion novella of short stories, Unbound: Origins, into the literary universe.  

I realize there’s some controversy to the term zombie. Some people will argue that a person can’t be considered a true zombie unless he/she is a reanimated corpse that was legitimately dead prior to zombification. So… yeah. My story might not meet those rigid qualifications, but if you’re interested in zombies/pseudo zombies/apocalyptic events/conspiracy theories/romance/road trips and/or energy drinks, hopefully Unbound will pique your interest! 

Happy reading, my friends!