I was raised in Utah in a Mormon family intent on living up to the high\nstandards and expectations of being descendants of the Joseph Smith\nfamily. I spent my childhood struggling to be perfect to avoid the\nwrath of my violent father, and to protect the family’s\nhigh-profile image in The Church and community.
When I left for college at seventeen, I was exposed to professors and\nideas that countered everything I’d been taught and believed,\nparticularly the history of my famous relatives and the development\nof the Mormon religion. Disillusioned by what I discover, I left my\nfaith, family and Utah to establish an identity that was separate\nfrom my legacy, but with repercussions I didn’t expect.
I graduated magna cum laude from Utah State University with a double BS\nin Journalism and Psychology, then earned my MBA from NYU in\nInformation Systems. I spent the next twenty years in the high-tech\ncorporate world, eventually leaving to have more time with my\nchildren and pursue my interest in writing.
I was accepted into the Iowa Memoir Writing Workshop and, later, the\nBread Loaf Writer’s Conference, on the basis of initial drafts of\nmy memoir. We\nWere Smiths: Falling From Grace is\nmy first book, but I have begun work on a second memoir.
I'm curious about the price we pay for facades, both individually, and as\na family. The issues of identity and loyalty, surviving or thriving,\nare also intriguing to me. These are themes I explore in my\nmemoir.
I split my time between historic Savannah, Georgia, and the mountains\nof North Carolina with my husband, Kent. Our three children have\nflown the nest, but fortunately, return often to visit.
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