Saying who I am leaves out so much of who I was and how I got here. It leaves out the young elementary school teacher who thought teaching was going to be her life’s work until she got married and had three daughters one after the other. (This was in the days—as Elizabeth Warren said—when pregnant women couldn’t teach.) Who I am leaves out my husband’s work for an international institution that took us out of the country for almost twenty years, years during which I studied Chinese brush painting and batik painting, served on the board of the Manila International School, and eventually commuted to Vermont College of Fine Arts for my MFA.
Now, as a fiction writer living near Seattle, WA, I draw a lot on those expatriate years in the Philippines and the South Pacific for material and inspiration.
