As a child in Wilmette, Illinois, I was a bookworm and a budding writer. To get some practice, I interviewed the folks on our block and published the Neighborhood News (with invaluable help from Mom). At age 11, I was a personal historian — of sorts.

From there, I went on to:

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• write for and edit my high school and college newspapers

• record an oral history of my grandmother in 1977

• earn a B.A. from Grinnell College in American Studies

• walk across the United States, a 3,500-mile adventure, in 1981

• work as a writer, interviewer, and counselor for nonprofits

• assist best-selling author Fritjof Capra for 24 years

• start First Person Narratives in 1998

• volunteer on a variety of community history projects

• take leadership roles in the Association of Personal Historians

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It's a joy and privilege to bring my skills and interests to the field of personal history. The more people I meet, the more I am convinced of Mark Twain’s assertion:

There was never yet an uninteresting life.
Such a thing is an impossibility.
Inside of the dullest exterior
There is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.