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writer, nomadic adventurer,
lover of life's great mysteries...

I love stories about women's journeys and transformations. I'm drawn to unconventional lives. And I'm fascinated by "love, sex, spirit & travel"--the subtitle of my first memoir, which won the Bisexual Book Award.

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My two memoirs (Call It Wonder & Wanderland) tell about how my husband and I left jobs and home to explore the world. We're nomads, housesitters, pet-carers, expats. We've also had to grapple with dramatic health crises and natural disasters that threatened to put an end to our wayfaring.

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My three novels feature women's life stories: For the May Queen (a young woman's first year in college), Complementary Colors (a woman in her thirties falls in love with another woman for the first time), and Revolutionary Kiss (a young woman's life during the French Revolution, which I co-wrote with Mary Janelle Melvin under the name Mary Kate Summers).

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I've also authored two collections of poems and a book about queer teachers. My essays, stories and poems have been widely published. I hold a PhD from the University of Washington and an MFA from San Jose State University.

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For many years, I taught university-level writing. Before that, I barely survived teaching in an American high school. I've taught internationally as well: at a language school in Japan and at a university in China. I've led writing retreats in Thailand and Mexico. And now I work as a writing coach and book editor.

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As a girl, I dreamed of becoming a traveling writer. Finally, that dream has come true. 

Half the year I live in Mexico. The other half I wander. 

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Check It Out:

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"The Wanderers Guide to Free Lodging: Insights from a House Sitting Expert with Kate Evans." YouTube and Podcast

 

"Tag Team Editors: How We Helped Each Other Write Our Books." WOW! Women on Writing.

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"After Undergoing Brain Surgery, I was Diagnosed with Cancer. Then I Got News I Never Expected." HuffPost Personals

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"From Baja to Lake Chapala: Magical Mexico." House Sit Magazine

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"After Being with a Woman for 15 Years, I Married a Man." Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day

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"The Healing Machine." Elephant Journal

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"8 Steps to a Dream Life of Travel." Elephant Journal

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"21 Things I'm Glad I Know." Elephant Journal

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"Write That Book: 7 Tips to Get it Done." Elephant Journal

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"How to Have a Crush on Your Husband." Elephant Journal

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"Pride: A Million Hands Holding Us." Elephant Journal

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Video Poem: "The Boy Who Gave Me Herpes." The Broken Spine

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Poem: "Elephant." Verse Daily

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Poem: "Above the Town." Poemeleon

 

My Favorite Books

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My Life in France, Julia Child

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman

Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh

The Long Secret, Louise Fitzhugh

The Book of Salt, Monique Truong

Educated, Tara Westover

Good Cop, Bad Daughter, Karen Lynch

Vital Signs, Gregg Levoy

An Italian Affair, Laura Fraser

All Over the Map, Laura Fraser

The House by the Sea, May Sarton

Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton

Expecting Adam, Martha Beck

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund

The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende

Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende

Pleasure Dome, Yusef Komunyakaa

Fear of Flying, Erica Jong

Housekeeping, Marilyn Robinson

Home, Marilyn Robinson

March, Geraldine Brooks

Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon

Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron

Orlando, Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf

The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

Beloved, Toni Morrison

We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider

Egalia's Daughters, Gerd Brantenberg

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (memoir in graphic novel form)

Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons, Marilyn Hacker

Birds of America, Lorrie Moore

The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo

Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, Mark Nepo

Let's Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell

The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan

Deep Creek, Pam Houston

The Invention of Wings, Sue Kidd Monk

The Happy Hollisters, Jerry West

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (another graphic novel memoir)

Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (kind of memoir/essays)

The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer

The Surrender Experiment, Michael Singer

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett

A Thousand Names for Joy, Byron Katie 

The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner

Mind Over Medicine, Lissa Rankin

Willful Creatures, Aimee Bender

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maude Montgomery

Wesley the Owl, Stacey O'Brien

She's Not There, Jennifer Finney Boylan

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson

Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson

Happy Yoga, Steve Ross

Writing the Natural Way, Gabriele Rico

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani

Champion of Choice, Cathleen Miller

Mules of Love, Ellen Bass

The Human Line, Ellen Bass

My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor

Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed

Wild, Cheryl Strayed

Cesar's Way, Cesar Millan

The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

Half Broke Horses, Jeanette Walls

Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison

Never Change, Elizabeth Berg

Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles

Sailing Alone Around the Room, Billy Collins

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

The Hours, Michael Cunningham

Specimen Days, Michael Cunningham

Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Cactus Eaters, Dan White

The Dead and the Living, Sharon Olds

A Country Year, Sue Hubbell

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Mark Doty

Dog Years, Mark Doty

The Master, Colm Toibin

Just Kids, Patti Smith

Maus, Art Spiegelman (another graphic novel memoir)

Charlotte's Web, E.B. White

Hello Cruel World, Kate Borstein

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basiel E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

Born to Run, Christopher McDougall

Golden Days, Carolyn See

Making a Literary Life, Carolyn See

Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

The Art of Happiness, Dalai Lama

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum

The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert

My Heart is an Idiot, David Rothbart

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Chang Jung

Maya Angelou's memoirs

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