I have been a professional grant writer for 30 years. I spend much of my time writing silly, semi-autobiographical romantic poems to avoid grant deadlines.

I have kept a journal since I was in the 4th grade (early 70’s). Apparently, I have been rehearsing for Mortified all my life. My poetry was first published in 1997 in the Love Blender Digest, the web’s original love poetry community highlighted in The New Yorker. Long before social scientists concluded that social media was linked to greater social isolation (in fact, made us sadder) and apps took over the Internet, humans found each other and formed communities on the World Wide Web.

One cannot blame my education for my “broken picker,” botched relationships and bad romantic poetry. I was educated at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oregon. I blame my parents — who have been married for 60+ years — for setting a high bar for authenticity, respect, compassion, kindness, sexiness, adoration, service, and compromise. They are still the couple to beat… Of course, I was destined to write poems on love and longing! I also inculpate the 1965 board game Mystery Date, which is still in my closet. The object of the game was to acquire a desirable date, while avoiding the poorly dressed “dud.” I always thought the “dud” was the most interesting of the five possible dates. His hair was tousled, and his face sported a beard shadow. As a girl who loved fashion, I figured we could replace his slovenly attire. Besides, that bowling date looked pretty boring. And, evidently he was, because they replaced him with the “picnic” date in 1970.

In reality, my zest for life and belief in love is unimpaired. And, my passion for poetry remains.

Keep your spark alive. It is the only way to attract sparkly humans.

Enjoy!