About Me

I have a Master of Business Administration, a Master of Fine Arts, and a Project Management Professional certification. Most people would pick a lane. I never did.

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I started as a freelance illustrator and designer back in 1996, when the Internet was new, and we hand-coded in Notepad. Over the years, I've worked with brands on packaging, book covers for indie publishers, and whatever else needed a visual language built from scratch. At the same time, my day job has always been running projects, the kind with real budgets and real deadlines and real accountability.

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Along the way, I got tired of fountain pen ink bleeding through every journal I bought, so I learned to make my own. This became Twisted Vintage. Every book is bound by hand from upcycled fabric, someone's old skirt or a bolt of vintage cloth, paired with archival paper that actually holds ink. No shortcuts. No outsourcing.

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I also write fiction. Elene Sallinger is the name on my erotic romance, unapologetic and explicit. As A.J. Rico, I write contemporary fiction about women figuring out who they are underneath everything they've been told to be.

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And because apparently three careers wasn't enough, I teach. Toni Teaches is where I hand creatives the project management tools that took me decades to learn, so they can finish what they start without burning out first.