Maurine F. Dahlberg

I don't remember a time when I didn't write! Even before I learned to write words, I drew picture stories. My sister and I read a lot and were always writing stories for each other. We also spent a lot of time playing make-believe--we were everything from horses to princesses--so I got plenty of experience "being" someone else and developing plots. When I was ten, I learned to play flute. Music, reading, and writing became my main activities outside of school. I continued writing over the years, but I didn't sell any manuscripts until, after reading many World War II memoirs, I got the idea for Play to the Angel. I had never tried writing a book set in another time and place, and at first I was afraid to try. But as the story came together in my head, I knew I had to tell it. I loved researching and writing it. I found that writing a historical novel lets me "be" someone else in another time while still having my own life in today's world. I was born in Fulton, Missouri, and went to college in Texas. I've lived a number of other places, including a village on a mountaintop in Germany. Now I live in Northern Virginia, with my husband, Randy, and our cat, Daphne, who's an Egyptian Mau. In addition to writing, I'm a full-time editor for a research corporation. Evenings and weekends, Randy and I are musicians. We play in a concert band and a German band, and often play in pit orchestras for local community theater groups. Right now I'm working on an adult novel set in present-day Scotland. I have a lot more ideas for books I hope to write, both for adults and for young readers.