Cindy’s Biography

Hello! So glad you stopped by for a visit today. In order for us to become better acquainted allow me to introduce myself. I was born and raised in New York. I met my husband at Westchester Community College where I received an AAS degree. Four years later we were married. Nine months later we had our first child, a daughter. Our first child was followed by a son and daughter. We have lived in three different states. We moved from New York to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to North Carolina; three moves – three kids. I refuse to move again for fear I will have another child.

I felt like I was home the first time I visited North Carolina. It’s a beautiful state decorated with an abundance of foliage. Thanks to the almost year round warm climate and blooming foliage I now suffer from allergies twice a year, in the spring and fall. It was during my usual morning sneezing attack that Katie Couric and Matt Lauer announced on the Today show a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I watched live as a second plane hit the second tower. The day was September 11 – a day no American will ever forget. It was the day that woke me up and changed my life. It was the day I decided to stop writing stories and stuffing them in a drawer. It was time to pursue my writing. It was time to make a dream a reality. Since September 11 my columns have appeared in the Greensboro News and Record, the High Point Enterprise, the Gilroy Dispatch,the Hollister Free Press,the Reidsville Review, Eden Daily News and The Foothills Paper.

Because of September 11, I have decided to take what was a life altering event for me to reach out and help others. Sexual abuse is never easy to deal with no matter what age, but when it happens to a child it changes who they are. I was one such child. There are children like me who have been abused and do not speak up. As a result of the abuse their world will be forever different. By living in silence they live alone with the burden of shame and guilt. I realize with my writing I could help boys and girls. Help them realize they must break their silence. Help them realize they are not to blame for someone else’s behavior. Mainly to help them realize that the only thing worse than the abuse itself is the silence that may follow. The purpose for writing Doris in Dreamland is so the stories can serve as a tool to start the healing process.

I can say with certainty, “It may take time to find it, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.”