I was born and raised in Washington State, graduating from Wenatchee High School in 1968 and from the University of Washington in 1972 with a BA in English. I spent the next long while in Southern California as a free-lance writer. I began a community newspaper still in existence, The Glen Ivy Sun-Times, and lived and worked out of the historic Glen Ivy Spa. During that time I worked for many magazines (Harper’s, First for Women, Northwest Magazine), newspapers (Riverside Press-Enterprise, LA Times), and literary magazines (Renaissance Woman, Plains Poetry Journal).
By the time I got into my thirty-somethings, I decided my income was too unstable, so, like many of you, I went back to school. I received my MA in English in 1985 from Cal State/ Fullerton with a Master’s Thesis titled “The Poet as Shaman.” I taught for a couple of years at Colorado State University in Fort Collins before returning to my native Northwest in 1991, starting at Linfield in 1992.
I taught part-time at three colleges for 17 years until I finally started at Lane CC full time teaching Writing Only courses in the English Dept. and started working as a Faculty Technology Specialist, which led me to teaching all kinds of online skills to the entire Lane community.
My husband Peter and I share interests in teaching, poetry, canoeing, First People’s art, birding, natural history, Oregon literature, and many, many other topics.