Like the stories of the pioneers who have fascinated me since childhood, my life story has been a westward journey. I was born in Missouri, not far from where Oregon Trail pioneers began their treks. Later, my family moved to Oklahoma where I grew up and was educated. 

My first westward adventure was as a college student working one summer in Yellowstone National Park. I fell in love with Wyoming’s mountains and open spaces then. Twenty years later an opportunity to teach at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs finally gave me my chance to live in Wyoming. In the words of John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High,” I felt I had “come home to a place I’d never been before.”Teaching writing, western literature and western American studies at Western Wyoming Community College while living in the small city of Rock Springs and later in the rural area of Eden Valley, Wyoming have all been influences on my writing.

I still see Wyoming’s landscape, wildlife, people, and history with the same sense of wonder I felt when I was first introduced to them.  My husband and I live close to the Oregon Trail in Wyoming on ground homesteaded by the first settlers in this valley and in the home they built 100 years ago. Surrounded by reminders of the Oregon Trail and memories of pioneers, by the Wind River Mountains and the high plains deserts they knew, I have found my voice as a writer and my heart’s home.