Pam Lewis

About Pam

I was born in Burbank California to a pair of ambitious parents who moved the family every few years as my father sought greater responsibilities in the then-bourgeoning aviation industry.
 We finally settled in New York City long enough for me to attend high school. I was shy, too tall too soon, and only excelled at school when I finally set my sights on Stanford University and squeaked in on so-so grades.

I married immediately after college, and went to work as a programmer until the birth of my sons, Lukas and Joshua Casey, who are now well into their adulthoods with young families of their own.
 While they grew I worked at a motley assortment of jobs including Welcome Wagon lady, treasurer to a small corporation, reporter, freelance writer and swim instructor. When divorce meant that serious money was required, I put my head down, gritted my teeth and wrote marketing copy for insurance companies in which the objective was to make readers see their diminishing health and retirement benefits as a welcome change. For this I apologize. As an antidote, I wrote fiction furiously every morning, more as pleasure and therapy than with an eye to publication, which, at that point in my life, seemed unlikely. So I was pleasantly surprised when my story You Are Here was published in The New Yorker and after that  Speak Softly, She Can Hear, Perfect Family and A Young Wife were published by Simon & Schuster.

In 2005, I married Rob Funk who led hiking treks worldwide—with a concentration on Asia—for The Appalachian Mountain Club. I joined him on these and became one of his co-leaders. To him I owe the constancy of my life as well as my appreciation and knowledge of the outdoors. Rob died of Lewy Body dementia in 2012, and, since we’d always wanted to move to the Southwest, I picked up stakes in 2014, drove across the country with my cat, settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and never looked back. I love the big sky and the more ancient sense of history that what I found on the East Coast.

I now live with the wonderful photographer John Simmons in an adobe house in Los Ranchos, just outside Albuquerque in The North Valley. I’m learning photography slowly and post processing even more slowly, but enjoying the process. And I’m working on a book about a health cult that has taken over one of New Mexico’s many ghost towns. The story—as happens  with all my novels—has taken some creepy turns requiring research into the dark side, this time on  mind control and black-market organ sales.