About Us
Yes, we are sisters. We were born three years apart in a time when technology was a phone in the kitchen and a TV in the den. From the get-go, we were totally different kids. Laura liked books, playing dress up and tap dancing. Beth liked music, stuffed animals and cowboy boots. One of us haunted the library and the other was always outside with the birds, frogs and squirrels. Can you guess who was who?
Our common ground was pretending. We liked to make up our own stories and act them out. Any TV show, movie or book could be a platform for spinning our own plots. We built forts in nearby woods, rode bikes and had many pretend adventures. When we lived in Miami, we had our own pool and became like fish, or as Beth believed dolphins, like Flipper.
One of our favorite games was called STOP. One of us would begin a tale and at an exciting point, yell “STOP,” and the other had to carry on with the story.
As we got older, Laura spent her allowance on books and new fashion trends. She became editor of her high school yearbook. Beth collected soundtracks and starred in high school plays. Her favorite role was Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird.
So, it wasn’t surprising that we both found careers in the arts. Laura went to college, married and raised two daughters while working as a freelance writer. She wrote a bazillion articles for Atlanta newspapers and magazines and dreamed of writing fiction someday. Beth trained at the American Conservatory of Theater in San Francisco and acted on TV, in movies and in the theater.
We never lived in the same city as adults, but we stayed close. When our work slowed down, we decided to write a book together. It was STOP all over again, only with computers and cellphones. Laura started a story about two sisters in Philadelphia who needed to solve a mystery. Beth threw in a ghost. Talk about a monkey wrench! But there you have it, our first book, The Red Coat. We hope you’ll enjoy hanging with Kate and Ellie. We feel like we kind of know them. And yes, we’re pretending our way into the sequel.