About Me, My Life

~words~life~adventure~


​I will not hide this: I've had an interesting life, and one which lends itself well to editing, writing, and philosophizing. If you’d prefer to just cut to the main attraction, see my Résumé (a downloadable PDF via Dropbox).

Born to a family of storytellers, hard workers, thinkers, and rural philosophers, in North Louisiana country, there were musical nights, storied evenings, and meandering days. I am grateful for my life in the lost-in-time woods and ideas.

By the time I was 17, I had become friends with street gangs, musicians, writers, software engineers, the built-in-solidarity gay community, the wealthy, the poverty-stricken. Life stories ranged and sweltered from this mélange of beautiful humans.

The desire to wander, to see more, struck me at 19, and I bought my first motorcycle, taking off, traveling the country alone. Though I was pursuing a beloved double major of music and electrical engineering, the desire to hear and experience stories overrode my desire for formal education. Explore I must, expand I must …

And so, to San Francisco I went, preparing to settle down. There were many lessons learned and a thousand lifetimes of tales to hear, but Taos, NM was my new home by the time I was 28. I have lived here, with two small jaunts elsewhere, for 21 years.


During these travels and forays, I wrote. I wrote constantly. Incessantly and obsessively. My poetry has been published in small magazines, but my main interest has been academic writing.


My life has allotted me immense and profound depth of perception and insight, with work experience being only part of the story. With that said …

My work experience is varied, like my interests and skills, but here are some of my favorites: I became the youngest Admin II at San Francisco State University, managing the Music Department; I was office assistant to John Sealy Brown at Xerox PARC (this is a big deal if you know much about PARC); I started doing software Q&A (quality and assurance) before that was even a real job title; I mastered web design and coding as one of the first web coders in the Bay Area (imagine that); my editing career started with editing geometry theorems for a dyslexic geometrist with whom I sat for months, absorbing exoplanetary geometry at a mind-aching rate; I developed attention to detail as acquisitions assistant and library preservation and restoration specialist at the Palo Alto Main Public Library.

These are loosely related to editing and writing. More to the purpose, here is the crunch of experience and education you might find relevant:


  • BA in English, Creative Writing (Graduated cumma sum laude)
  • Previous Editor (of all shades) and publisher of HOWL Magazine, out of UNM-Taos
  • Previous Legal Office Manager/Secretary for LCP, PC Law Firm (Legal writing editing and proofing)
  • Librarian and archives at both public and corporate libraries
  • Owning/Operating a successful web design business for several years, as well as teaching web design and marketing at UNM-Taos for three years
  • Completion of the Editorial Freelancer's Association course, The Keys to Effective Editing​ (a refresher course for me)
  • Extensive knowledge of MS Word and its Tracking Changes function for editing; some experience with InDesign, Adobe Acrobat (creating and editing PDFs), as well as project management in many sectors
  • And, just for fun, I completed the entire Khan Academy Grammar Course (it took three days) and reviewed the APA Publication [Style] Manual, 7th Edition


Always growing my skills base, I am perpetually reading, learning deeper editing skills, and take editorial CPE (professional development) courses.

~writer~editor~