: About Me

In mid-2008, following years of working as a reporter covering the Defense Department, I left daily newspapers for a job doing media training of sorts for military commanders. The love - and urge - to write never left. In fact, I miss it. I miss how I used to be able to identify myself with it. Here, with Helium, I aim to stretch those writing muscles and satisfy that intense internal need to put some words on paper. I read once that thinking about writing is not writing. Saying you are a writer without writing is not writing. Only writing is writing. So...here I go...

My passion is ...

Life.

My parents always told me ...

Every decision is a life decision.

My childhood ambition ...

To be the first woman president.

My favorite memory ...

It's a recent one - hiking in the rural highlands of Ethiopia on assignment with my husband.

Why I write ...

To tell people's stories.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Reading "Me Talk Pretty One Day." Watching old military movies. Listening to some strange iPod combo of Tim McGraw and Tom Petty, Britney Spears and Fergie, Clapton and the Clash.

My first job ...

Dressing up like a chicken to sell Tyson goods at a grocery store.

My best moment ...

Happens daily - when someone teaches me something new.

My inspiration ...

A mentor who once told me everyone has a story worth telling.

Travel > Travel Planning & Advice Best vacation destinations for a nature-filled getaway

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Rising from the heart of the Chesapeake Bay stands Tangier Island, the remote home to just 600 residents who survive by harvesting the Bay's famed crabs and oysters. Life here is a testament to a foregone era. Narrow roads, used only by bicycles, golf carts and the town's one police officer's Chrysler PT Cruiser, connect the colonial style homes that have withstood the coastal hurricanes ravaging the shores since Capt. John Smith discovered the island 400 years ago. The winters are long, cold and lonely for many of the residents. Their only connection to the mainland of Virginia and Maryla...

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