Hi, my name is Shasta.

I'm a 40-something, questionably-mature lady living in North Texas with my two dogs (biting, snarling, mean 14-pounders) and ekeing out a living in the banking industry. In my free time, I practice running (but suck at it) and read memoirs and Regency romance novels. I'm an avid tennis watcher, but wouldn't dream of actually playing it. My biggest accomplishment so far has been running the Humboldt County Redwoods Marathon very, very slowly.

In 1980 when I was six, my parents got an electric typewriter. Every day I'd drag it out, set it up on the kitchen table and plunk out my stories. The first one was about a mouse, and didn't go anywhere because I couldn't imagine any conflict for a mouse. (Apparently I'd never heard of a cat.) The second one was about a girl and her granny driving in her pink Volkeswagon Beetle from Mobile, Alabama to San Francisco, California -- places I picked out on my dad's Rand McNally atlas. The third story I wrote was during the phase every tween girl goes through: horses. That one was about a retired racing horse in a pasture, and like the mouse story, went nowhere.

Over the years, I've learned that the best stories I can write are the real ones, the ones that I tell about what happens to me and the stuff rattling around in my head. I guess you could say that I'm working it out.

Thanks for reading!