• As a teen I went on a 38 day wilderness canoe trip 100 miles south of the Arctic circle, where our group happened upon an anthrax-infected-and-quarantined buffalo reserve.

• I married my high school sweetheart just after my 23rd birthday. He is still putting up with me.

• Before staying home to raise our four children, I taught abused, neglected and gang-affiliated teens.

• The boot that Charlie Chaplin ate in “The Gold Rush” was made out of licorice by my grandfather.

(You can find the scene on Youtube!)

• I knit. I read. I coach tennis. I make soup.

• In 2007, our family moved to England for 1/2 a year. Just because.

• My husband and I spent three days in Death Valley in the middle of summer, where the high temperature was 126 degrees and the low was 99.

• And, of course, I write