Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”

Virginia Woolf

From the time her mother started reading to her, Amanda wanted to write. At nine years old, Amanda created a stir in the public library when she attempted to check out a book about Tutankhamun. When told she needed to stay in the children’s section, Amanda disagreed; her mother ensured she left with both the book and an adult library card allowing free access to all books, regardless of maturity level. After that, Amanda’s mother struck a deal with her: for every contemporary fiction book she read, she was required to read “a classic,” thereby introducing her to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, the Bronte sisters, and Edgar Allan Poe. Through early American literature, Amanda became obsessed with the power of short fiction. She was fascinated with all her favorite writers’ ability to present complex and flawed characters immersed in doomed romance and supernatural circumstances within a fraction of a novel’s pages

Amanda’s passion is gothic fiction in the vein of the great American Romanticists, Stephen King, and the short horror fiction of Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates. Her desk is covered with scribbled-upon napkins, faded quotes, cards, letters, beautiful journals, and an abundance of pens. Amanda is a member of the Author’s Guild, the International Women’s Writing Guild, and The Writer’s Center as well as a patron of the Academy of American poets. In August 2019, she completed her undergraduate degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. Amanda is expected to complete a Master of Fine Arts in writing in August 2022.

In her free time, Amanda (voraciously) reads, (badly) knits, (too infrequently) paints, and (obsessively) gardens. She drinks tea, not coffee. She has three cats and is losing the Battle of Dust and Cat Hair. Amanda doesn’t like talking about herself in the third person. She resides in Baltimore, MD.