Short bio

I was born in NYC in the 50's, moved to Canada at age 3, Belgium at 5, then Washington DC at 11, spending summers with my mother in Mallorca after my father moved his two children back to the States. I am half French and half American, and have lived and worked on boats for the last 30 years while traveling to many parts of the world. My partner in love, Leo, is Swedish.

My work has appeared in:
Nature Conservancy; South Florida Sun-Sentinel; Sailing; Islands (Caribbean columnist 2000-2001); Cruising World; Sail; Scanorama (SAS inflight magazine); and a story in Lines in the Sand: New Writing on War and Peace, an anthology for children.

2004 Book reading:
Books & Books in Coral Gables (Miami), Florida.

Member SCBWI

Languages:
English, French, Spanish
(will translate from French or Spanish into English)

Licenses:
Captain, USCG 100 ton
Amateur Radio

With my mother and brother on
the ocean liner Ile de France

(extracted from letter to agent)

Bobbie said to be sure and tell you about my unusual background, and by that it's unclear whether she's referring to: The fact that I've lived on a sailboat for thirty years and am fluent in three languages; that I first left home at age eleven —only to be dragged back by the police; that I continued to call Scottie [my new stepmother] 'Mrs. Lanahan' though her name was now Mrs. Smith, and contributed greatly to my father's and her subsequent alcoholism; that I despised everything American when our father moved us over from Belgium after his French wife abandoned the family to run off with a Spanish toreador; that I was expelled from boarding school —and my poor father taken to court because of it— and later suspended from the school that took me in; that my best friend and some 6 relatives (including the grandmother we lived with) have all ended their lives by suicide; or that, unbeknownst to me, my ex-husband stole my diaries and used them to write a nonfiction book detailing the breakup of our marriage, after sinking the boat we’d lived on and telling me that everything I owned was lost (published by Viking). I hasten to add that I feel no bitterness, and instead am grateful for an adventurous childhood with so many thrilling memories.

My father and stepmother
Scottie Fitzgerald Smith