I love a good story. And history holds an infinite number of stories just waiting to be rediscovered and brought back out into the present. History is a part of who I am. For over half my life, I have been studying and researching and writing and working with history.

Working as an archivist and researcher and getting to physically interact with and study centuries old historical documents has created this very personal relationship with history for me. Discovering those stories held within, the lives of the people mentioned, the events coming to life is as exciting as anything can be. Being a part of the process of researching that history, finding those stories, and bringing them to life is what drives me as a writer and a historian.

My interests are varied and my writing has matched my curiosity. Being from West Virginia and studying West Virginia history, I have written much about the state’s history from telling the story of the first person to die in the state from Spanish flu, who was an incarcerated black man, to how the first woman in the state to establish her own law practice sued the male hierarchy of her town for their sexist harassment of herself and her career. But I have also written about feuding Revolutionary War doctors, 19th century ghost hunting, and much more.