After graduating with a BA in History at University of California, Davis, and an MA in Economics at California State University Sacramento, I worked as a Resource Economist/Environmental Consultant for 22 years. In 1991, I began writing fiction for adults and children.

My recently published novel, Across the Mekong River, was a finalist in the Carolina Wren Press 2010 Doris Bakwin Award for adult novels, the Maui Writer’s Conference 2003 Rupert Hughes Prose Writing Competition, and the Focus on Writers 2001 Friends of the Sacramento Library Awards. 

My short story “Sky King,” about a Hmong-American family was published in the literary magazines Red Wheelbarrow, Summer 2004, and The Armchair Aesthete, Fall 2004, and won First Place for a Short Story in the WIN-WIN Conference 2003 Persie Writing Contest.  Other published works include several short stories and a children’s middle grade novel, Martin McMillan and the Lost Inca City. 

I became interested in the Hmong immigrant community after meeting Hmong children in my son’s school in Sacramento and reading Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. I first traveled to Laos in 2006 to research Across the Mekong River and returned twice as a member of the nongovernment organization Legacies of War.  Most recently, I visited Laos with my husband in 2011. 

Legacies of War  raises awareness about the history of the civil war in Laos and the U.S. bombing campaigns, which left close to 80 million unexploded cluster bombs that continue to kill and maim hundreds of Laotians every year.  The project advocates for greater funding to clear unexploded ordnance and assist victims..  As part of my work with Legacies, I authored two articles on the history of the war in Laos and the aftermath of unexploded ordnance.  In 2010, I spoke on Laos at the European Southeast Asian Studies annual conference in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

I am married with three grown children.  I currently reside with my husband in Sacramento, CA.