Rules of the Lake is a collection of linked stories about growing up on a lake in "pre-Disney" central Florida in the 1960s. The stories trace the maturation of smart, funny Annie Bartlett, who recounts her childhood on Widow Lake. She's obsessed with the desire to learn to breathe underwater so she can become a mermaid. In pursuit of this fantasy, Annie grapples with the constraints imposed by her father's lake rules (No Swimming Alone, No Swimming After Dark, No Diving in Unknown Waters) and is forced to confront, among other things, her own mortality. The interplay of characters from story to story reveals the underlying fragility of this family as it simultaneously evokes the milieu of humid and tropical central Florida. Book jacket.

Irene Ziegler grew up on a lake in Volusia County, Florida, and graduated from Stetson University. She teaches acting as Artist in Residence at the University of Richmond. Her stories have appeared in Other Voices, The Missouri Review, Tampa Review, and other literary venues, and won her an individual fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She has written for the Discovery Channel's New Detectives series and is the author of a dozen training films and CD-ROMs. In addition to an extensive career on stage, Irene appeared as principal Jane Markey in the television series Dawson's Creek and guest-starred on the now defunct series American Gothic. She appeared opposite Anne Bancroft in the movie G.I. Jane and plays opposite Joan Allen and Gary Oldman in the upcoming film The Contenders. As a voice-over artist, she has recorded books on tape, narrated a documentary TV series for NASA, and provided the voice for a talking Mercedes-Benz. You can contact her at her website: www.ireneziegler.com.