I never wrote poetry as a youngster. I grew up in a mildly diverse ethnic working class community where the closest I got to literature of any kind was the 'Reader's Digest' condensed versions of books. Once I got to Catholic boarding high school, my greater education began, but still I did not write my own poems. Even in college the thought never came to me to write poetry.

In 1975 when my young family and I moved to the West Marin County California small community, Point Reyes Station, I did start writing with the inspiration of the community of writers who met at the used bookstore we owned. The store and book collection had developed a literary reputation even before we took it over, and we continue to build it. It was in that writer's group, which morphed into a group that lasted for twelve years, where I learned to write and edit poetry.

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In 1978 I received a California Arts Council Grant to establish a rural poetry series; also over those years I co-published a small regional arts anthology; was a co-owner of an alternative literature service; and produced poetry readings and performances, all the while as I was mother and life partner to a wonderful photographer, and was known to be a political activist. That was the beginning of my writing career.

I've been seriously writing since 1978. Now, I am a crone writing in an uncommonly common voice of age and experience about people’s stories, death, aging, and witnessing our culture, while I put shoulder to the wheel of change and hope, with all I write. I retired from Interfaith Chaplaincy in the End of Life field, and live in Sonora, Mexico, and visit my thriving family in northern California. Over the decade my poems have been published in a variety of journals and publications, check above to read those published poems.

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Only poems that have been published are included on this website. On the poem page is the publication date and where it was published. The links that are live (underlined) are poems that are available to read, but the non-underlined pieces are waiting the publishing dates.