writes about the nature, history and culture of California. Trained as a geographer at San Francisco State University, her passion is to look for the intersection of influences regarding a place or an event. She is a frequent contributor to Estuary News Group and Bay Area Monitor. Her work has also been published in Smithsonian, High Country News, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle. She is the award-winning author of Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California's First Poet Laureate.