Margery Snyder is a poet & flute-player who pronounces her first name with a hard ‘g’. She was born in Washtucna, Washington, a small town amid the dry wheatlands in the downwind shadow of the Hanford Atomic Reservation, grew up in southern California, and studied literature in Santa Barbara, Boston & Chicago. She started her writing life in short stories, and began to write & perform poems only after she settled in San Francisco in 1985 and came under the influence of the city's community of performing poets. She has given readings across the US & Europe, and for many years she toured with the late Whitman McGowan, backing his spoken word performances on flute & gong.