The author grew up in a caring, supportive farm family in the rural Midwest. With a kitchen table ever covered with newspapers and magazines, she naturally gravitated toward writing.
After earning a degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin she was eager to fly in her own right, to see if she could make her way in a world apart from theirs. They lovingly set her free, the wind beneath her wings.
After launching her working life at the St. Paul Pioneer Press/Dispatch in Minnesota (and winning a press club award for investigative reporting the first year), she followed an inner compass that pointed north. She moved to Anchorage, Alaska, via federal employment but soon returned to newspaper and freelance writing in Anchorage.
When a family move took her to Juneau she worked in public information with the State of Alaska, then launched Alaska Up Close, a tour and travel planning service where she wrote travel brochures and informational booklets for her clients from around the world, and ads and news releases to promote her business. She also began designing web sites for herself and for other small businesses.
Since retiring from the tour business she’s written a play set on the Stikine River, one of Alaska’s most compelling and mystical locales; co-authored a book, Red and Blue: A Memoir of Two Alaskan Tour Guides about her experiences as a tour operator; and written an e-book, Alaska Travel Planning Guide: Help for the Independent Traveler.
She’s written speeches, newsletters, columns and articles for both the public and private sector and for non-profit organizations.
She believes that words always matter, that they are the most important medium of exchange in our personal, professional and public lives. In the end, they matter supremely.
A Sheltering Tree is about the role of friendship during her 45 years in Alaska, and how her understanding of friendship was re-defined after two personal losses.