Something About Me

I grew up in France, across the border from Switzerland. I lived in Geneva for a few years, so it feels like home too. That’s where I fly to when I visit my family, from Vancouver, where I live with my husband.

As a teenager, people working in Geneva’s international organizations while wearing traditional clothes on the streets made me dream of traveling. I did travel a lot, including living in four countries. My then-little niece even thought I lived in an airplane, since I always came out of and returned to the airport.

But as a twelve-year-old penning expressive letters to my best friend’s father in a long-term care facility, I had been told I should be a writer.

Instead, I studied foreign languages. Later, attending university in the U.S. revived my passion for writing. I hold a B.A. in International Studies (emphasis on international organizations and law) and a diploma from a two-year distance learning course with the London School of Journalism.

I have written for digital and print publications, including an award-winning digital travel magazine.

Golf, gardening, the fun of fashion, and traditional French pastries are a few of my favorite things.

I studied English in England, then German in Germany. Learning Spanish became useful when I lived there part of the time. However, my writing tongue of choice is English. Writing in a second language perhaps helped me establish my ‘writing voice,’ but there is no such thing as total bilingualism. This might be why I consider myself a slow writer.

I have always enjoyed writing, perhaps because I read a lot as a child. I still have these books, in French.

Then, from one tutorial book to another and learning how to write travel stories, I started a collection of nonfiction short stories, still in the works. Halfway through writing a novel inspired by a true story, my focus changed, and I devoted my time to a memoir, Biography of a Friendship.