I am a New York-based writer. My short stories have appeared in Agni, The Missouri Review, The Antioch Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Harvard Review, Image, Ascent, Pleiades, and other publications. My collection The Send-Away Girl won the Flannery O’Connor Award in 2003 and was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2004. I have been a speechwriter in New York City and New York State government and for the U.S. Senate.

The title of this site is taken from the biographical note that Muriel Spark submitted to the publisher of her first novel, The Comforters (1957):

Born in ice cave of southern Tyrol year 609 B.C. of centaur stock, mother descended Venus. Muriel Spark rose from the waves as is well known. Demands fabulous fees.