I left home at 17, drifted through a year of college in West Virginia then settled in Boston where I enrolled in the Berklee School of music. I studied flute and saxophone by day and supported myself by waitressing at night.

After a few years I moved to New York City where I eked out a meager living playing in various jazz, Latin and pop bands. I formed my own group, recorded a few demos and wrote the music and lyrics for two Off-Off Broadway Plays.

I started rehearsing for the second album but before recording began Columbia dropped most of their jazz roster, including me.

Having lost my sole source of income and in desperate need of money I took a job as a taxi driver but several months later I was involved in a serious accident.

When my case went to trial the jury awarded me a small settlement and I used that money to finish my B.A. and M.A. in music.

HILARY

HAWKE

BIO

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I then enrolled in the CUNY Musicology Doctoral program but after completing half the coursework I got a pamphlet in the mail entitled “Career Alternatives for People with PhD’s in Musicology.” Taking the hint I dropped out and took a ‘real’ job teaching music, first in Spanish Harlem, then in Florida and urban New Jersey.

That’s when I started writing.

My first book, The Payback, was self-published in 2003 and I have finished two other novels,The Firekeeper a historical fantasy that parallels the Salem witchcraft trials and Poetic Justice, a suburban thriller loosely based on the Sidney Reso kidnapping. I’m also working on A Quality Education, a satire about urban public schools and a book narrated by my blue-front Amazon parrot, Venus called How to train Humans and other Featherless Creatures.

Works in Progress

The Firekeeper

The Firekeeper begins with the Inquisition in late seventeenth century Germany and ends in Fearndale, Massachusetts, a New England town reeling from the aftermath of the Salem Witchcraft Trials.

The heroine, Norma Winston, is the designated heiress to a long tradition of occult knowledge.

The Firekeeper chronicles her transformation from a helpless child unable to rescue her mother from being burned at the stake into a warrior who reclaims the heritage she’s long denied, attacks the negative association between women and witchcraft and champions the cause of the persecuted.

Poetic Justice

Nelson James is an obnoxious oil executive with a spoiled teenage daughter and a frustrated wife. When nineteen-year-old Aria befriends punk rock singer Courtney Cyranac and introduces her to Nelson with the naļve notion he can help her career, he secretly agrees to back her in exchange for sexual favors his wife refuses him then reneges on the deal. Courtney, with the help of Wolf, her ex-con former boyfriend and co-band leader, abduct James and hold him hostage.

Entombed in a coffin-sized box in a remote North Jersey storage facility Nelson impatiently waits for his wife, Erica, to pay the ransom but his arrogant disregard for others has provoked an unlikely alliance. Erica has learned bout his affair with Courtney. Her best friend, Carol Cane, despises Nelson for treating Erica like a two-bit whore. Carol’s husband, Bob, suspects his wife’s mysterious immunological disorder stems from Jameson Corporation’s illegal dumping of toxic waste. Courtney’s intent on collecting the money Nelson owes her and Wolf’s bent on avenging his band mate.

Eventually everyone, except Aria, become co-conspirators in the kidnapping.