As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, I majored in “all things interesting,” a list which included courses in biology, ecology, natural resources management, creative writing, and poetry. After college I moved to Yosemite National Park where I worked as a naturalist and educator and learned to rock climb, back country ski, and entertain myself with nothing more than a field guide, a trail, and a pair of binoculars. Later, as a graduate student in the University of Montana’s environmental studies program, the list of “all things interesting” expanded to include Spanish and environmental education. For my thesis, I traveled to a rural community on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico to develop an environmental education program focusing on neo-tropical migratory songbirds (a fancy title for birds that breed in the north and winter south of the border). At age thirty, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to work as the education director for the state Audubon Society and later as a teacher.
Although I didn’t publish my first book until the secret age of somewhere past young, I have always been a writer. (If you don’t believe me just check out the boxes and boxes of stories, diaries, poems, plays, and random thoughts I have written since I could first hold a pencil). I am also a scientist wannabe, but since I realized I only liked to muck around in the field in cool places and would never actually be a scientist, I married one.
When not writing, I like to hang out with my family, rock climb, try to grow a garden in the arid southwest, bird watch, travel, and attempt to play Klezmer music on my violin.
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