Kris was born in Thatcher, Arizona, a small town in Southeast Arizona that grew from cotton farming and copper mining. It is also the town with the best Dairy Queen in the nation. No one really knows why. It’s just better there.

When she was six weeks’ old, Kris attended her father’s boot camp graduation and began life as a military brat. Her father was still on active duty when Kris left to attend college at University of California, Los Angeles. Following in her father’s footsteps, Kris attended college on a Naval ROTC scholarship. After graduating, Kris spent several years as a surface warfare officer before being accepted to the Navy’s Law Education Program. Under that program, the Navy sent Kris to law school at the University of Chicago, where she once memorably corrected her professor, the future President Obama, when he called military uniforms “costumes.”

After law school, Kris had a successful career in the Naval JAG Corps which culminated in her serving as the military assistant, or chief of staff, for the General Counsel of the Department of Defense. At the end of her tour there, Kris was diagnosed with Gulf War Syndrome from her time in the Arabian gulf as a surface warfare officer. The illness was serious and she was eventually medically retired from the Navy. After spending years fighting for her health, Kris returned for a few years to the practice of law, before her continuing health issues forced her to give up practicing once again.

During her time practicing law, Kris was a successful appellate attorney. Every good appellate brief tells a good story, with some law thrown in. Absolutely no longer able to practice law, and classified by the VA as fully disabled, Kris decided to turn her story-writing talents to writing fiction. Her debut novel, The Quest for Harmony, comes out in fall of 2023.