I grew up in Los Altos, CA.  Ever since the age of 10, I knew that I wanted to be a writer, and since the age of 12 I also knew that I would be a traveler, when I read a complete encyclopedia set called Lands and Peoples. This has led me to visit 104 countries, with the bonus of learning 7 languages along the way.  I met my husband, Joe, as a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in 1973. We were volunteers for 5 years in Honduras, Kenya and the Seychelles. Upon finishing Peace Corps we took a 3/12 year trip that got us from the Seychelles, down the Nile for 1000 miles, 7 months crewing on a 55’ trimaran in the Caribbean, then overland from Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego and back.

We spent 5 months on an uninhabited island in the Galapagos, tagging turtles for the Darwin Research Station, and went to Antarctica for 3 ½ weeks with the Chilean navy.  From 1981 to 2001 Joe worked for CARE and we lived in Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Honduras, Mexico, Niger, Mozambique, Sudan, Ethiopia and Mali. Between Niger and Mozambique in 1990 we took a seven-month trip to the South Pacific. In 2001 we moved from the southern reaches of the Sahara Desert to the Caribbean Sea on St. John, USVI. My philosophy in life is “Any trip, Anywhere, Anytime!” I visit Africa at least once a year, and sometimes twice.

I began writing for children in 1981, when I sold my first manuscript to “Highlights for Children”.  Since that time I have written for magazines in Asia, Africa, America and Europe. I have also worked for various international organizations, doing the writing, photography and lay-out design for fund-raising materials.