Keena was born in Dayton, Ohio, and moved with her family to a farm slightly to the left of nowhere when she was four. She grew up with pigs, cows, brothers and a half-broke pony named Star. She learned to read by picking words out of an old history book that vividly recounted the past through short stories centered on children of the age: The Grecian slave boy. The girl from Pompeii. The knight’s squire in England.The stories stayed with her. She studied history, English and philosophy in college, earning a bachelor’s degree in history at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. She studied medieval history in graduate school at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and still keeps up with academic research through the Medieval Academy of America.
After honing her writing skills as a newspaper reporter and editor, she switched to public relations and began writing fiction. Career honors include writing awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Gannett newspapers and the Associated Press.
She inherited the family’s nomadic gene and has lived in Ohio, Indiana, New York, Missouri and North Carolina, with short stops in even more places along the way. She currently lives in Illinois, but says that could change any day.
When not working or writing romance, Keena regales her niece and nephews with stories of quick-thinking ladies, mathematically challenged knights, and ill-mannered dragons that chew with their mouths open.
