A fifth generation Californian, I grew up in rural Mendocino County. (My parents both attended one room schools where the other pupils were mostly their siblings.) Thanks to the highway act of the 1960s, travel to the city became appreciably easier, and I attended Mills College and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and worked as a writer and editor (in Washington, D.C.) for New Republic Books, the National Endowment, and the National Geographic Society. I returned to the West Coast and raised a family, worked in advertising and wrote poems. I also review books on occasion, and give readings at cafes and other venues around the Bay.