Born in upstate NY, my family moved to Kansas in the early 1960's where, at the age of 5, my parents got divorced, my father and siblings returned to NY and I had life-saving open-heart surgery. Raised by a devout Jehovah's Witness/freelance writer and her new husband, a newspaper photo-journalist, I began writing at an early age,as a stringer for several local and regional newspapers by the age of 13. At 15 I left home, living on a commune in the Appalachians for over two years and settling in Columbus, Ohio by the age of 18. My partner and I now live an work in the Pacific Northwest. I write mostly essays, memoirs and poetry.