A Brief History of Me
I was born in Oklahoma City, on the way from California to Virginia. We moved a lot when I was growing up. I learned to entertain myself, and that books were friends that were never left behind.
When I was 15, my parents decided that was enough moving. We left our suburban home outside Washington, DC, and moved to a farm to live off the land: trees, cows, goats, and a small cabin with no phone, no neighbors, no running water (fortunately, this feature didn't last more than the first summer). I started high school in a small town, 13 miles away. The first inkling I had that things were a little different was when kids started taking off school to wash their pigs for the fair. I wasn’t in the city any more.
I started writing for publication in my early twenties when my children were small. They provided plenty of material. The local newspaper, The Perry Daily Journal, paid me $5 a week to do a weekly column that I called An Optimist's View. A second newspaper picked up the column. I sold a few pieces to women's magazines. Then had my first biggie - a My Turn column in Newsweek. That turned into an inquiry for a book from an editor, which fell through when he moved on. End of opportunity.
Starving, I decided to return to school. I got a degree in Social Studies Education, a MS in Geography, then moved with new husband and kids to Tucson, Arizona to work on a PhD. Here I started writing educational material, teaching, traveling. It didn’t take long to discover I’d rather travel and write stuff people read than academic journal articles.
We moved to Maldives in May of 2005. (don't be lazy, look it up!) Then to Victoria, BC, Canada in 2006. Then to Los Angeles in 2007.
Which is where I am today. Writing. Traveling. On my way. Again.