I was born in Brazil. My father went there as a Lutheran missionary, my mother bravely went with him barely a week after getting married. I remember riding on my father’s shoulders as we galloped through the jungle with monkeys screeching at us in the trees above. It was glorious! I remember getting stuck in red mud with sheep surrounding us as a shepherd drove them homeward, a sea of baaing, woolly beasts! I remember the steel drums; I loved them, so did my father.
We moved back to the states when I turned three. Then, we moved all over because my father was a traveler who brought kindness and compassion to people who needed it most. We lived in LA to Redway, then headed east to the vast plains of South Dakota. I missed the redwood trees terribly and hunting for Big Foot with my brothers. But mother gave me Little House on the Prairie, and I began to grow deep roots on the Great Plains with my pony Blondie who liked to buck whenever we galloped. We moved again to Minneapolis. How I missed the plains, my pony, and my freedom. I felt my life was over. Then, I grew to love Minneapolis, the lakes, biking, running, swimming, and cross-country skiing in the snow.
I kept moving… living in the Florida Keys, Colorado, Maine, then Virginia. I was going to be a Marine Biologist, but when I discovered how much proposal writing was required, I decided I would spend more time writing than under the sea. So, I moved to Colorado where I took a job at a school for Creative and Gifted Children, and a teacher was what I was going to be. But I needed to finish my degree, so Bar Harbor beckon. This is where I finished my BA in Human Ecology with a focus on education and how to be a teacher.
But I felt I lacked enough life experience to truly be a good teacher, so I set out to gain some real-life experience and moved to DC. It almost swallowed me whole… except that I happen to meet a tremendous woman who helped me swim, Viola Young Horvath. She was one of the first microbiologists in the US. She who took me under her wing and guided me through life in WDC. I never, ever wanted to work in the corporate world. But, somehow, with Viola’s help, that is exactly where I ended up writing stories for corporations and non-profits in the form of proposals, annual reports, funding reports… which is exactly what I didn’t want to do as the younger version of myself. But I was sure getting life experience, way too much at times!
I met my life partner, a volcanologist at the Smithsonian, and began our family. We have one vibrant, beautiful grown-up daughter who is a constant source of inspiration and vitality. That’s about when I started looking for this story. It took me 12 years to find it, then 12 years to write it. From its inception, the timeline of this story began in 2020. And then, reality caught up with the story. Because of this, one of the characters has been woven into current events. For this reason, book 1 of this series may not be suitable for all readers as it deals with contentious concepts and issues happening right now, in 2024.