Bent over my typewriter with stacks of tourism bureau brochures, as a kid I produced my family’s travel magazine, Magical Weekends (circulation: Mom and Dad), in which I planned vacation itineraries in rigid time chunks resembling a school day. In middle school I spent babysitting money on women’s magazines, taking psychological quizzes to learn how to get guys to like me and/or become a boss-woman worthy of her suit’s shoulder pads. My takeaway from those glossies was this: Most writers’ bios indicated that there was a career in New York City called freelance writer involving writing articles and books from home. It was the life for me; I was living it, albeit in my sheltered Southern childhood and without a W9. So, at 22, I took Manhattan, and for a decade I worked at papers, trade journals, and magazines, first on staff, then freelance, dragging several friends to the Catskills town of Liberty for a “summer share” and readings at KGB along the way. Much as my heart will always belong to Manhattan, I eventually knew it was time to go: I hauled west for better real estate, gentler gentlemen, and coffee.

Since 2002, I’ve made Seattle home – it’s where I’ve written articles (and a book) about personal finance and real estate, and where I’ve also sought some targeted education and bought a property within which to build a nonprofit and offer community for creative people. Maybe it’s because I’m a Capricorn with lots of Pisces in my chart and sometimes need to escape from hard work, or because my father was a math man and my mother musical, or because I’ve lost lots of loved ones and hear from their ghosts in dreams, but at midlife I’ve accepted that I am a person working under my own strange constellation of guiding stars: creativity, practicality, organization, and mystery.