Virginia has been making up stories for fun since she was a skinny, shy kid with straight hair down to her waist. She’s now less shy, less skinny, and has shorter hair. However, she still loves fantasy novels, other novels, other books, the beach, the woods, animals, birds of prey, and thinking, writing, and talking about how to make the world better.
Most of her waking hours, Virginia is reading and writing: books, emails, blog posts, essays, magazine articles, book reviews, and – oh, yeah! – stories and poems! She’s an award-winning news journalist and her poetry, articles and essays have been published in Clover, A Literary Rag, Friends Journal, Western Friend, various newspapers, and the anthology, Enlivened by the Mystery. She is a Walk Award winner of the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest. Often when Virginia is reading, editing, or writing, she has a dog at her feet and a cat cruising back and forth between her and her monitor and/or book. This is not 
convenient. It is not efficient. But it is quintessential Virginia.
When NOT reading, writing, or editing, Virginia is likely carrying out a passionate defense of native species in her immediate environs by uprooting English ivy, Himalayan blackberries, and other invasive plants. Virginia has been a secretary, pet groomer, lobbyist, newspaper reporter, newspaper editor, and Aikido instructor. Now she edits books, and writes poems, short stories and as-yet-unpublished novels. (Stay tuned!) Over the years, Virginia has fostered more than fifty cats and kittens, and is very proud that she has only kept three!
A member of the Bellingham Friends (Quaker) Meeting, Virginia lives on a small plot of alternately sun- and rain-drenched woods, meadow, and gardens in northwest Washington state with her sometime-sailor husband, Mark; a black cat named Galadriel; a gray-and-white cat named Frodo (missing a toe on one forepaw); the miniature schnauzer Strider; and an Aussie-Pom called Laddie.
She may, someday, foster more cats or kittens. If Strider and Laddie will promise not to chase them. Strider? Good boy!
… Laddie?
Laddie! ….