bio

I grew up in the Great Central Valley of California--the huge agricultural valley that stretches up and down the middle of the state, sometimes called "the other California," because it has more in common with the Midwest than with the coastal cities just 80 miles away. My home was in a small farming town: among other ventures, my family grew apricots.

I fell in love with stories before I knew how to read, and soon learned I could make up my own. I "wrote" my first story by dictating it to my mother when I was three. I had no way of knowing then that I would write for the rest of life, that no matter where I went or what I did, the one constant would always be my writing.

I left my home town at 17, enjoyed a few years as a "flower child" in the late 60's, then, after graduating from college with degree in psychology, started a long period of travel and study. Between 1970 and 1986, I spent many years in Japan, India, and China. I spent two summers in Guatemala, and a fascinating winter in Amman, Jordan. I traveled Siberia by train, went overland from France to India, and hitchhiked through Afghanistan. I visited many other parts of the Middle East and Central America, as well as Southeast Asia.
My travels weren't merely for adventure--they had a purpose. Every place I went, I studied the culture, lived with the people, and learned as much of the language as possible. Most importantly, I delved into the many spiritual traditions of the countries I visited. I read the sacred writings and learned the teachings and practices, but I also spent much of my time talking with monks and nuns, priests and priestesses, shamans, mendicants, mystics, and lay people.

Later, I earned an M.F.A. in Writing and a Ph.D. in Linguistics and became a linguistic anthropologist and a college professor. And I kept on writing.

It was in a particularly dark part of my life that I began to seriously think about why writing was so central to my existence. For years, I had been searching for a spiritual path that felt right. Now I realized that I had been on it all along. Every time I put my pen to the page, I was following that path.

I soon discovered that writers of all ilk talk about their work in the same terms that shamans, monks, and mystics use when they speak of their spiritual practices. I realized that writing brings writers a sense pf purpose, meaning, connection and transcendence. It can serve as meditation or prayer, as ritual or good works. To write is to be witness to the human experience and the voice of the Earth. Writing is a sacred act.