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My mom's dad was the son of Scottish immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island in the late 19th c. My mom's mom's ancestors were English/Welsh craftspeople who were converted to Mormonism by the first wave of LDS missionaries in the mid 1800s. At the behest of Brigham Young, they left their former homeland to trek across the American desert to eventually found the first Mormon settlements in Cache Valley, Utah.

My father's ancestors were both Scottish immigrants and Mormon pioneers who eventually ended up in Cache Valley too. I like to consider myself a Scot because I am wee and surly and because I have a blood type common to Scots but rare in other populations (A-). But really, I'm a Heinz 57 of English, Welsh, Scottish and who knows what. I was born (out of wedlock! gasp!) in Logan, Utah but grew up mostly in Pocatello, Idaho which is like Utah-lite, in the sense that Spam Lite is light.

I often think of myself as an ex-Mormon because I spent my formative years so immersed in "the Church" but in fact, as the bishop of Benson Ward refused to bless me when I was a bastard baby, and as my mother never quite got around to making arrangements for my baptism when I was eight (she knew what I really wanted was that nifty CTR ring), I guess I was never officially a Mormon.

Now that I've gotten over coveting the pretty silver rings of my grade-school friends, I would sooner retrace the pioneer's steps or swim back to Scotland than convert to any organized religion. I'll be the first to admit that I could be wrong and there might just be a heavenly reward, there might, in fact, be a "God," and if so, I might be screwed. But until I find out otherwise, I'm sticking with my brand of celtic-buddhist agnosticism.

I don't remember not being able to read and I have loved books and words all my life. The first book I checked out from the library was "Horton Hears a Who" by Dr. Seuss. I've had my nose in the middle of some book or another ever since. If I'm not reading, you'll probably find me writing; as likely as not, my fingers are stained with ink and effort. I don't write as well or as prolifically as I read, but I keep up the struggle.

I have a degree in Art History but after a couple of years in the field and one semester in graduate school, I began to dread the thought of getting a PhD in it. So I dropped out of school, quit my job, and started writing again after a fourteen year hiatus of "being practical." While contemplating what I really wanted to be when I grew up, I worked a motley assortment of jobs, doggy daycare attendant, car salesperson and porn store clerk among them. Many long dark nights of the soul later, I realized that what I really want is to never grow up. I want to spend the rest of my life learning, never calcifying into someone who believes she has all the answers. I want to get an MFA in Creative Writing, I want to write and teach writing until I'm too old and too senile to work a pen.

Except for the MFA, I already have pretty much anything I could want already: love, friends, dogs, books, paper, pens, a roof over my head, a Light Brite, y'know the essentials.

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