I was tutored by the blossoming spring orchards of the Valley of Heart’s Delight (now know as Silicon Valley), where I was privileged to spend my 1950s childhood. Later my mentor was clear blue Lake Tahoe, where I spent my teenage years. The Sierra Nevada and the Colorado Plateau imprinted my cells with the beauty of their granite and red rock before I gardened in an eco-village in Davis, California, and later transplanted myself to the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon.

Here my pleasure lies in editing books on gardening and environmental topics, coaching authors in finding their best voice, teaching writing classes that connect people with nature, playing my guitar and singing at Good Samaritan Regional Hospital as part of its Arts and Health program, and tending an energy-efficient and earth-friendly home and garden.