Just so you know a bit about me, I’ve been a truck driver, a farmer, an  environmentalist, and a mother of sons all grown now. I’m a hugger of trees, lover of old folks, history, quirky science, and books. My mother’s parents were restaurateurs and I like to try new recipes, although they don’t always come out the way I expect.

I’m deeply concerned about human resiliency and how families and communities contribute to it–or not. Because I grew up in one, I’m particularly interested in extended families who have close relationships with the places where they live.

As a farm kid, I got a hands-on introduction to one three-quarter-section piece of land–not by riding over it on a tractor, but by walking every hill and fencerow. It’s provided me with a strong concern for the health of that land and the entire planet.

I must have my hands in the dirt, so every summer I disappear into my garden(s) where I grow fruits and vegetables as well as flowers. I live in town now, but my favorite parts of my double corner lot are the native grass and wildflower plots. They’re nearly self-sustaining now.

My writing qualifications include an awful lot of living, some of it hard. I’ve worked most of my adult life as a writer, more than a decade as a public information officer for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. That gig deepened my familiarity with the Great Plains. My work has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines. I have also published two award-winning memoirs, a collection of essays describing my home on the plains, and two historical novels, one about a big band canary, set in the 1930s and 40s and another about a Nebraska farm boy set during the ’30s and ’40s in Nebraska, Panama, and the Southwest Pacific during World War II.