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I was supposed to be a teacher. Raised a Quaker by parents who devoted their lives to education, I nearly succumbed. After graduating from a public high school northwest of Philadelphia and from Earlham College with a degree in English literature, I landed a job teaching at Wakayama University near Osaka, Japan. Two years later, I was at Harvard University in a master's program in East Asian Studies and poised for a career in academia.

Maybe it was hitchhiking home from Japan through Asia that whetted my appetite for something more adventurous than teaching. Maybe it was seeing the world anew when I headed to the Sierra Nevada with my husband for a summer that has yet to end. What's clear is that a job with the local weekly newspaper, which I accepted for a winter, quashed every intention of teaching. When I left that paper I was a journalist, freelancing stories and photographs to national magazines in a career that is as fulfilling as it is liberating.

I focus on the natural environment. My favorite assignments include tagging along with scientists in the field, the more remote the better. Exploring new landscapes with experts gives license to my innate curiosity and penchant for traveling back roads. Once home, I write from a one-room office in a century-old building in Greenville, California, in the heart of the Feather River watershed. I'm a contributing editor at Audubon and American Forests.