I've been a writer all my life, but it's harder to write a short biography of myself than to write a 300-page novel! The plain facts are that I was born in Poughkeepsie, New York-that's always one of the first things I tell people-and went to college to become an English teacher. Instead I got married, moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and started working as an editor in book publishing. That's what I've done ever since, along with writing a dozen published books. My family and I returned to live in the Hudson Valley quite a few years ago.

My new historical novel, The Keeners, will be published for St. Patrick's Day in March 2005. I'm planning to write a series of three books: the first is set in the 1840s Famine and the Irish immigration to America, the next in the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin, and the last during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1972, coming around to the ongoing peace process today. I hope that readers will feel the connections that Irish Americans still have to the country from which our ancestors came-and realize the importance of achieving peace in our world.

When I was researching The Keeners, my husband Joe Tantillo and I went to Ireland to visit County Clare and other historic areas. Joe took a picture of this herd of nervous bulls charging down the road in front of our little blue car-they couldn't find the gate into their pasture and we didn't know how to stop the stampede. Luckily a local farmer came by and shooed them off to the side of the road! The next time I went to Ireland I rode a bus.

I still live in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley with my family and our two West Highland White Terriers, Dixie and Dallas. I also spend a lot of time in Vermont, although from the names of my dogs you'd expect it to be Texas! I enjoy visiting with kids and teachers in the schools to talk about my books for younger readers, and now I'm looking forward to meeting new readers who enjoy my books for adults.