About Me

About me, what about me….well, I’m the youngest of seven kids who grew up in the frozen north country of Grand Forks, North Dakota, 50 miles from the Canadian border. The town had a population of about 50,000 when I lived there (1950s to 1970s), and the US Census Bureau in 2019 estimates it now has about 55,000, so it hasn’t grown by much, even though the state’s largest university is there. The Census Bureau also says the population is 85% White (still), so it’s not the most diverse place in the US to grow up.

As soon as I was legally able, I pointed my car south, started driving, and didn’t stop until I reached the Gulf of Mexico. Enough of insufferable winters! Now I deal with insufferable summers in Houston, Texas. I won’t say the oil industry brought me to Texas initially, but it is certainly the reason I have stayed. I began my geoscience career initially in Dallas, Texas, and 10 years later moved to Houston, where eventually I started my own business as a technical editor/writer. 

I’ve been holding the business end of a red pen, figuratively speaking, for the past 29 years or so, editing everything from geological, engineering, environmental, medical, nanoscience, computer science, and lots of miscellany in between. To say that editing honed the anal-retentive side of my nature would be an understatement. Now, I’m trying to turn that spigot off a bit and let the right side of my brain flow. Let’s see what comes out! (But please, if you see a typo in any of my blog posts, do tell me, would you?!) 

I’ve been married and divorced three times, I’ve had as many as two dogs and seven cats, I’ve had a raccoon die in my attic, and I’ve been through a hurricane, several tropical storms, and a few floods. I’ve had some great successes and some colossal failures. Lots of material there for a nonfiction blog! Through it all I’ve learned to keep a sense of humor and to trust in the comfort that we are never alone—that community will sustain us.