I obtained my Bachelor of Business Administration, with a major in Computer Information Systems at Southwest Texas State University in 1985. I have fond memories of completing a senior DBMS project with one of the first dual-floppy 8086 IBM PCs and pfs:WRITE software. After learning WordPerfect 4.2 in early 1988, I developed custom courseware and trained law offices that were converting from Wang systems to PC-based Local Area Networks. In 1990, I began teaching classes for the international training company, Productivity Point International  (PPI), and progressed into courseware development for their corporate headquarters. My student and instructor manuals were distributed internationally for use in all PPI training centers.

In 1993, I wrote my first  book for Que with Michael Miller called Oops! What To Do When Things Go Wrong with WordPerfect. My second book, WordPerfect 6.0 SureSteps was written that same year. Since that time, I have authored or co-authored six  other books for Que, including Que's First Look at Windows 95 and five  editions of the Special Edition Using WordPerfect books (for versions 6, 6.1, 7, 9 and 10).

I have also written extensively for Que Education and Training, which specializes in corporate and academic training materials. As a member of the development team for the best-selling Essentials series, I wrote nine student manuals and three instructor manuals on all levels of Microsoft Windows, Corel WordPerfect and  Microsoft Word.

I was a contributing editor for the WordPerfect for Windows Magazine for almost four years until it's untimely demise in 1998. I wrote the monthly "Basics" column for the first year before  taking over the "Troubleshooting" column.

I've did some writing for DDC Publishing, a book publisher that targets the academic market. I wrote two Internet Business Binders for them, Business Binder II and Careers. These binders teach high school and  college students how to use the Internet as a research tool. I co-write the One Day Course titled "Upgrading to Office 2000" and did some tech editing for them as well.

Read and I were lucky enough to be able to update our SE Using WordPerfect 9 book for WordPerfect 10. We were able to fix some of our mistakes and improve on the original idea of packing as much practical information as we could into a chapter. The book was released on December 13, 2001 and appears to be selling well.

Since then, I've written the Absolute Beginner's Guide to WordPerfect 10, the Absolute Beginner's Guide to WordPerfect 11" and the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Word 2003.  The retail price is $18.95, but most retailers are charging less than that.

Most recently, Read and I teamed up again to update our Special Edition Using WordPerfect book for versions 11 and 12. We were very pleased to include coverage for both versions in the same book. It was released on August 10, 2004.

With a little help from my friends on WordPerfect Universe, I also updated the Absolute Beginner’s Guide to WordPerfect for version 12. It was released on July 28, 2004.

I'm especially proud of the ABG WP books because this is a book that I've been wanting to write for a long time. When the press releases about the bundling deals with HP, Dell and Gateway  starting coming out, I realized that there wasn't a book available to help a new users learn how to use WordPerfect. The SE Using books are geared towards the intermediate/advanced user, and all of the other books on  the market cover the whole suite. I went back to Que Publishing and proposed a book that focused on the most frequently used application in the suite -- the word processor. Since most of the OEM deals include Quattro  Pro, I included three bonus chapters to help get people started. There is also a chapter on the Task Manager, which is included in Family Pack and the Productivity Packs that were included with HP, Dell and Gateway  and other major brand name computers. Read more about the ABG WP10, ABG WP11 and ABG WP12 books.

When I'm not chained to my computer, I enjoy scuba diving, swimming, cooking, reading, and chasing our children  and our dog around the back yard. I live in Texas with my husband, Jeff, and our three children: Ben, Lindsey and Sarah.

Here's a picture of me and my husband at my niece's wedding in Oct. 2003

My lovely children at the same wedding: Lindsey, Sarah and Ben.