More About Me

My journey as a writer and photographer began early with a five-year diary and my uncle's old Polaroid camera. It was a sort of magic, not only seeing the Polaroid photos appear before my very eyes, but also writing what I had experienced and seeing it in black and white. That was about the time I was captured in this photo with my big haul of fish in Panama City. Okay, my dad did catch a few of them.

True journaling, poetry, and an SLR camera followed. Still, I never expected those interests to lead to a career in journalism and freelancing, much less a lifelong pursuit. For me, writing and photography are just as necessary for contentment as nature.

It took experimenting first with pre-med science classes and then anthropology coursework before I stumbled into reporting. Hoping to improve my photography skills to help document various cultures, I began both writing and taking photographs for "Kaleidoscope," the student newspaper at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Thanks to a professor's recommendation, I also began working as a proofreader for "The Southern Medical Journal."

After graduating and a two-year stint as a technical writer at Southern Research Institute, a friend helped me get a job as a feature writer-photographer at "The Dothan Eagle." Later I worked as a business reporter at "Florida Today" in Melbourne then as a writer supporting NASA public affairs at Kennedy Space Center before going out on my own.

As a freelancer, I wrote travel, business, medical and science stories and took photos for magazines, newspapers and websites. In addition, I did wedding and portrait photography and PR copywriting. Here I am fishing again, this time from the Miss Cape Canaveral off of Cape Canaveral. You can't even tell that I had been feeding the fish for hours after having eaten a heavy, greasy breakfast onboard that morning.

I felt fortunate as a travel writer and photographer to get the opportunity to travel across the country and world, enjoying various outdoor adventures. As Florida was my homebase, I spent many hours emersed in natural retreats there, including at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Area near where I lived.

Some highlights of my international travels include kayaking the Panama Canal, snorkeling the Red Sea off Sharm el-Sheikh, ziplining the Sierra Madre mountains near Puerto Vallarta, hiking Pico Bonito Honduras, soaking in Rotorua, New Zealand's geothermal springs, and tracking wildlife in Kenya's Maasi Mara. I'm pictured here kayaking during my press trip to Costa Rica.

Then came the Great Recession, my freelancing went into freefall, and I had to make adjustments. I moved back to Birmingham because the rent was cheap at Mama's house. Attending to all those extra pounds I put on during travel and event receptions, I lost weight through a healthy weight loss program at my childhood church. Then I turned my test into my testimony, taking the proper training and added group fitness and personal training to my freelancing mix. Fortunately, I was also able to start writing for "Business Alabama" magazine.

Fast forward to today: I'm married. The adjacent photo is one Steve took when we met in passing during a Cahaba Lilly hike at the Cahaba River National Wildlife Area in May of 2013. At that moment neither of us knew we had been friends in high school. We learned that later after meeting to take photos at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Talk about the birds and the bees ...

My husband and I have adopted additional fresh-air avocations in recent years, thanks in no small part to Covid. The desire to write about the great outdoors has been growing stronger in me within the past few years. So here I am nature blogging as well as pitching and writing outdoor articles for publication. I'm a member of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association.