This website started as three separate blogs that I created at different times: one about writing, one about politics, and one about life with chronic illness. Eventually, I realized it was simplest to just combine them all, so I did! I write on these topics and more, with the common theme of fostering connections. Blog subscribers can choose which categories to follow. If you’d like more info on a topic, explore the drop-down menus or use the “Search” feature.
My adventuresome life has taken many twists and turns. I grew up in Portland, Oregon and served in the Peace Corps in Tanzania, where I met my husband Ron. After our two-year service ended, I followed him home to the Midwest and we spent eight years in Madison, Wisconsin, studying and working together in conservation and co-authoring the book Field Guide to Wisconsin Streams.
In 2011, Ron and I unexpectedly became involved in politics, swept up in the protest movement then rocking Wisconsin. Soon afterwards, we united with a Republican couple to co-found Reach Out Wisconsin, an organization bringing people together for civil political discourse. I began blogging about politics too—I had wanted to be a writer all my life, and I was just beginning to write my first memoir.
A few years after those shifts, another twist occurred: at age 35, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and spent several years dealing with major illness. We moved back to Portland (as previously planned), and for a while I kept working as a stream restoration scientist, but eventually I left my job to focus on my health.
The silver lining was that I had more time to write. I had continued with memoir-writing off and on, and now I picked it back up again. My project eventually blossomed into a several-book series—my illness and other life events had given me more to write about! By the time my health had stabilized, I was committed to finishing the series.
So for the moment, when people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a writer. And I have continued to blog about civil discourse, health, writing, and life in general. Thanks for reading.