An avid sports fan, and hockey fan in particular, Valerie J. Wood has worked as a photojournalist for the long-defunct Hockey Ink! magazine, covering the AHL and ECHL from 1993-1997. She was on the ice as a photographer when the Richmond Renegades won the Riley Cup in 1994-1995, and extensively covered the Baltimore Bandits as well as the Hershey Bears in the mid-1990's. Enforcer was a result of her love of hockey and writing--and frustration that there were no contemporary novels about hockey's elite players, much less the teams' enforcers.

Val has also photographed an array of sports events, ranging from NASCAR stock car racing to APBA boat racing and college and CFL football (as an onfield photographer for the CFL Champion Baltimore Stallions) and minor league baseball, as well as being an avid photographer of pets and nature. She has written extensively for www.femmefan.com as the senior auto racing correspondent, and for various online sports sites over the years.

Val worked as an editor, writer and graphic design/professional layout artist for a major federal organization for over 11 years, and more recently, finished her second book (non-fiction) about her beloved dog's battle with bone cancer and the holistic measure she used to help him live for nearly a year past the initial diagnosis. Her book, Breakfasts with Buster was published in August 2009. Currently she is working on a novel with a harness racing backdrop, exploring the thrilling world of Standardbred racing.