Preying mantises, cicada exoskeletons, fuzzy caterpillars curled up into balls? Yes, I am the girl who gathered creepy crawlies on the playground and begged my teachers to let me bring them into the classroom. My second grade teacher even set up an observation station right next to a writing corner. It was a dream come true for me and the beginning of a life-long love of nature writing.

In college, I studied biology, an excuse to continue visiting odd and out-of-the-way places in search of critters. The more I learned, the more I realized that every place—whether it be a rotting log, the rocky intertidal, or a cave—presented a unique story.

As an adult, I have spent years sharing my love of the natural world with others through teaching. I admit that I am obsessed with ecology—the complex relationships that exist between species and their environment. (My family and I turned our one-acre yard into a gigantic habitat garden, so that we can watch ecology in action at all times.) How do humans fit into this world, especially when the world around us seems to be changing rapidly? This is one of the many questions I look forward to exploring in my writing.