Maria learned to write while sitting beside a battle-hardened newspaper editor who deservedly hacked her stories to pieces and asked if she had ever read a book on grammar. (She hadn’t.) She rectified that lapse immediately and has since written thousands of newspaper articles and two novel-length manuscripts with dreams of publication. She’s won awards for both styles of writing.
Most of her journalism career was spent covering Colorado breaking news, crime, and courts, though she also wrote about education, business, and technology. Her creative writing draws on that period of her life when every day offered something unexpected to learn and someone new to meet. Her invented characters have the same traits as the people she knows and loves: passionate, flawed, diverse, and just trying to survive.
Here's how she identifies herself:
Writer
Maria writes in an attempt to understand the world. She gravitates toward writing crime/mystery because she's still trying to process the uncomfortable things she saw as a journalist.
Reader
Big ol' book dork. Audio, hardcover, e-reader, it doesn't matter. She'll take whatever she can get her hands on. She'll read anything with good, non-stereotypical characters, be it literary fiction or a genre book. If it's a choice between light and happy or dark and twisty, she'll go dark. (Read into that what you will).
Wife & Mom
Maria's husband is the definition of the perfect writing spouse: He doesn't blink when she wants to spend way too much money on writing classes, journals, or pens. She has three amazing kids who take all her money, love, and sleeping hours.
Software Developer
This sounds kinda contradictory to the writing, but she enjoys using both her analytical and creative sides to build beautiful, useful, online tools. She works for the National Renewable Energy Lab and they're trying to save the world.
Coloradan
She know what direction she's headed based on where the mountains are. Her family has roots in Colorado from before it was even declared a state. She leaves at times but will always come back.
Slow-Ass Runner
She loves being outside and moving but, really, what she does on the trails would probably be more accurately be described as a jiggly walk.