I was born in Altoona, formerly one of the country’s great railroad towns, located in the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. My teen years were spent in nearby Hollidaysburg, a tiny town surrounded by farmlands and forests, quarries and strip mines. After attending Smith College and Stanford Law School on scholarships, I practiced law in San Francisco for ten years.
I live now with my husband and three teenagers in Northern California. Before starting Warren Wilson’s MFA program in 2008, my work was in advocacy and as a grass roots political orga more...
