Patricia Beal is from Brazil and immigrated to the United States in 1992. She fell in love with the English language while washing dishes at McDonald’s and learned enough to pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). She put herself through college working at a BP gas station and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati in 1998 with a B.A. in English Literature. She was the news editor of the university newspaper for two years.

After an internship at the Pentagon, she worked as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army for seven years. She was a spokesperson for five general officers, providing statements for television, radio, and print.

Patricia was in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when the first Operation Enduring Freedom detainees arrived, and the stories she filed during the early days of the detention operation there gained national attention. Writing from Iraq in the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom, she focused on feature stories for Army newspapers, and a feature on a day in the life of “Bad Luck Squad” won her a Keith L. Ware award in print journalism.

She fell in love with a handsome airborne infantryman during a stint at Fort Bragg, married him, and quit her special operations speechwriting job to have his babies.

Soon came the desire to have book babies, too. Gloria Kempton and Writer’s Digest author Jeff Gerke have been great coaches and mentors. Patricia is an American Christian Fiction Writers member, a 2015 Genesis semi-finalist, and a 2015 First Impressions finalist. She became a Christian as an adult and writes about searching for God with compassion, humor and understanding.

She has danced ballet since her childhood and has performed with pre-professional companies in South America, Europe and the United States. Her dance experience brings great flavor and authenticity to her first novel, A Season to Dance. She’s been stationed in Germany twice, and that experience, too, brings great flavor and authenticity to that story.

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