Welcome to my home page. I’m a writer with a passion for the diversity of peoples and cultures, languages, places, and the biological community.

I live in Portland, Oregon, in the Columbia River Watershed, home of salmon and Douglas fir, balsamroot and Oregon Sunshine, and, yes, rain.

I’ve written 7 novels, at least 4 of which are exactly where they belong: in a drawer. But I’m now looking for homes for my two most recent.

MUSIC IS EVERYTHING, which takes place in Prague, New York and Paris between the end of WW II and the Prague Spring of 1968. It is about the impact of history on individual lives, the choices we make in the face of violent events, and it counterposes the power of music to that of war. 

LOST NUDE is about a runaway from a hardscrabble Kentucky family who survives life as a street kid to become an artists’ model, working her way up to gallery owner, then, when her lover and partner is murdered, is forced to run again. This is a novel about the glamorous but grueling life of the art world, and the position of women within it. 

As a freelance writer, I’ve written about books, music, the environment, health and education; I still contribute book reviews, often of books about other cultures, to the ever-shrinking Oregonian.

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Drawing by Laura Bender