I HAVE A LONG HISTORY, which isn't entirely a good thing. The good part: lots of great memories and much less cluelessness. The bad part: my time is running out. I was at UC Berkeley during the Free Speech movement and a student at the Graduate School of Journalism during the school’s heady first two years. After that, I freelanced for national magazines at a time when you could do that and make a living (see two of my stories in the “Articles” link on my Homepage.) I also edited magazines and wrote an adventure travel book that people say they can't put down. (You can order it on Amazon.)

I TOOK UP PHOTOGRAPHY when I had to give up writing (due to repetitive stress in my hands) and wanted a reason to keep on uncovering treasure in little known parts of the world. I have no answer as to why I’m not afraid of “bad neighborhoods” except that ever since I was a kid I’ve known that those of us who are overlooked and even despised are more like us than we acknowledge.

CURRENT WORK: I  am working on a book about Makers and Artists living in West Oakland, a project sponsored by Paul Discoe of O2. The hope is to acknowledge the astonishing amount of creative work happening in hidden-away workshops now threatened by gentrification.

MY BOOK: "Shooting the Boh: A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River in Borneo."
MY MAGAZINE FEATURE STORIES: Published in the New York Times Magazine, the Village Voice, New West, Playboy, Ms., Redbook, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, California, and local newspapers and magazines.
MY EDITORIAL JOBS: Managing editor of The Los Angeles Weekly; Northern California editor of California Magazine; Editor of The Berkeley Monthly; and transitional editor of San Francisco Magazine.