I am a retired teacher with thirty-six years of service. I'm also a rock climber and mountaineer. I've climbed extensively in Yosemite and the Sierras, but my home crags are in Pinnacles National Park. My writing about climbing has been published in "Ascent" and other mountaineering publications.I'm an experienced writer. My "Dogwood Dream" won the 2011 New Millennium short fiction competition and two of my stories have been published by the Kids Book Review. My Civil War novel "Dawn Drums" was awarded First Place in the Arizona Authors Association's 2014 literary contest. Judges of the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards gave it the Tony Hillerman Award for best fiction.