Anyone who has visited my blog—which was my first toe into Internet waters—knows that I enjoy snapping photos. Though I studied photography for a few years at a local art college, I'm a hobbyist. But I've been a loyal hobbyist since I was 11 years old.

I like to think that my first camera, a humble Kodak Instamatic, helped propel me along the bumpy, detour-ridden road toward fiction writing. I got into the habit of observing the world, framing it, and creating fictions about what I saw through the lens. Writing is a surprisingly visual process, fantasizing the characters, their landscapes, the moles inside their elbows. Photography helps my process.

As an interesting aside, check out the original image used to create the header for this Web site. I snapped this shot at an itty-bitty Irish historical site surrounded by drystone walls and cows. It is a pre-Christian church, called Kilmoon Church, and it was one of the inspirations for my novel KILMOON, A County Clare Mystery.

Thanks to Willa for a grand Web site design!