I have pen-scratchings and typewriter clatter in my blood, with writers and wannabe writers in my genealogical tree that go all the way back to Ben Franklin's best friend.
So it was inevitable that journalism eventually
found me.
Armed with a B.A. in English from San Francisco State University, and some photography courses from City College of San Francisco, I honed my interviewing and writing skills by working in public relations and as a bilingual legal investigator in San Francisco.
In Argentina, the social explosion that followed the
economic crisis of 2002 brought me away from my plans to write a book of fiction in Buenos Aires into documenting the Argentine people's creative response to the crisis, working for Yes Magazine, Pacific News Service,El Atico, creating the website Argentina Now, and collalborating on an award winning video, Hope in Hard Times.
It was a stressful and powerful time, a "collective dissolution of the ego", as one Argentinian friend put
it, and an experience that we in the U.S. can learn from as we weather our own economic storm.
From 2005-2007, moved by a desire to document the indigenous movements and voices that were stirring in South America, I travelled through Bolivia and Peru, covering the election of Evo Morales and investigating issues in local Native communities for Indian Country Today, and researching the new liberation theology for Tikkun Magazine.
That experience convinced me once again that we are living in a time of great power and opportunity, when people who have previously been marginalized have much to offer the world, and all of us are being challenged to bring ourselves fully and authentically into the human and planetary circle.
I continue to write for Yes , Indian Country Today and other media, and have spoken on radio and at conferences about the often under-reported stories that are constantly occurring throughout the Americas.
My travels as a journalist have made me keenly aware of the healing that all of us need to do on a personal, ancestral, collective and planetary level.