At Occidental college, she earned a second degree green belt in Shotokan karate, won awards for photography, wrote for the school newspaper, majored in English, minored in philosophy, and graduated with Honors and special distinction for a creative writing project.
After surviving Willamette Law School where her third year writing project decried the exploitation of prostituted women by prostitution laws, the author practiced as a criminal lawyer and was also on the referral list for every battered woman’s shelter in the tri-county area as well as on the referral list for the Portland Women’s Crisis Center and Council For Prostitution Alternatives. The author handled the nation’s first open adoption by a Lesbian couple of a non-related child and sued the City of Portland Police for ignoring court orders protecting the rights of abused women to custody of their children. (Lost that one).
She tried cases in state and federal court and argued appeals in front of the Oregon Court of Appeals, The Oregon Supreme Court, and the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals while earning a black belt in Wu Ying Tao karate.
The author was politically active as a one of the thirteen original founding members of the Portland Lesbian Community Organizing Project which involved participating in QUAC (Queers United Against Closets), the Urban Amazons, which provide security to speakers such as Andrea Dworkin, and a participant in the Rent-a-Dyke project which loaned real live dykes to the Portland Police Bureau to interact with the police in cultural sensitivity trainings. (Always fun to be the only person in a sensitivity training without a gun).
After about fifteen years, of trial work, the author retired from the practice of law with a Form A resignation and worked as a free lance “contract” lawyer (a lawyer who works on contract for other lawyers), and a private investigator for lawyers. As an investigator, she learned every theory in Oregon law that can be used to sue a bar when someone gets shot there.
Born as: Gemini- Year of the Dog
Most Admired Person: Benazir Bhutto
Favorite Book: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Favorite Author: Agatha Christie
Favorite Movie: Song of The Thin Man
Words to Live By: Don’t get mad, get even.
Place I want to Visit Again: St. Augustine’s Florida
Place I never want to visit again: Jacksonville, Florida
Why I write: Because I’ve run out places to bury the real corpses