[close] I was fifteen when we moved to the Cape. Before that, we were a family of tourists, itching with poison ivy and peeling sunburns, holed up in musty motel rooms, eating powdered donuts for breakfast, getting lost on National Seashore trails, and dining in overpriced Clam-this and Lobster-that restaurants.

Memories of my youth took a turn when my sister and I found ourselves living here year round. Suddenly those touristy places we used to enjoy were off limits as we were ushered by new friends into a world of local hangouts and characters who often had little in common except their love of the sea––bluebloods, preppies, business people, retirees, divorcees, alcoholics, duck hunters, recluses, mooncussers, surfers, stoners, artists, blue collar workers, hippies, poets and dreamers. (You’ll have to read the book to learn what a mooncusser is.)

It wasn’t until years later, when I moved to South Florida, that these Cape Cod characters began to haunt me. I was homesick, and so I began writing about them. I enrolled in grad school for creative writing at Florida International University so I could learn the craft. I wrote poems about the Cape, and a story that was published in The Seattle Review about two Cape Cod shoplifters whose lives I invented. Some Assembly Required began as my graduate thesis and now, many revisions later, here we are.

In 2004, with our teenage son in tow, my family returned to New England and now I’m grateful to be able to spend lots of time on the Cape. On summer days, you’ll find me on the locals' beach in Orleans with friends, gathering new “material.”

I’m currently at work on a second novel set in one of those Clam-this and Lobster-that restaurants. [close]