My dive into the arts began in theatre and contemporary dance on Canada’s west coast. I performed and earned credits in both from Simon Fraser University, where I also completed a BA and MA in social-political history. A desire to discover the world contributed to a career in international development, pausing mid-career, to complete a Ph.D. in development anthropology based on fieldwork in the Andean highlands. Lessons learned and a twelve-year stint as the Executive Director of SeedChange (formerly USC Canada) inspired several peer-reviewed journal articles and my 2014 book: Trojan Horse Aid: Seeds of Resistance and Resilience in the Bolivian Highlands and Beyond (McGill-Queens University Press). From an ocean-view perch outside Antigonish, Nova Scotia, I completed an award-winning long-fiction manuscript – Where the Lampreys Meet – set both in my now ghost-town powerplant birthplace and its neighbouring First Nations reserve. On the lip of the bucolic riverside village of Wakefield, in a home I  share with my husband, Pat, and Murphy the dog, I am now writing fiction full-time.