Her work has taken her from Louisiana’s chemical corridor to the Douglas fir forests of the Northwest and the mining towns of Peru. She graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans and worked for six years for the Times-Picayune as a reporter and copy editor. During her 14-year journalism career, she also has worked as a staff reporter for the Statesman Journal of Salem, Ore., the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., and theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch. She has won awards for news and feature writing from organizations that include the Press Club of New Orleans and the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. She lives in Bowling Green, Ky.