Tucson Festival of Books
2018
SPECIAL! Enter Coupon Code LINDA at
checkout in the COMMENTS BOX for any &
all Tiny Drops products and receive a FREE
copy of TINY DROPS TIPS & TRICKS as my
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A thought:
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in
the rain.
---Anonymous
Bio
I opened my eyes to this world on September 24, 1949, in the old Army hospital at Ft. Ord, California, the
oldest child of M/Sgt Michael and Mrs. Harriet Hofer. My dad was the first American-born son of
Croatian immigrants, and my mother was the granddaughter of Prussian farmers.
In 1967 I graduated from Seaside High School, Seaside, California, and in 1977 I received an Associate
Degree in Nursing (RN) from El Paso Community College (now called Pikes Peak CC) in Colorado
Springs. I also attended Västmanlands Läns Landstings Vårdskolan (nursing school) in Västerås,
Sweden, for a year. (Yes, I can speak Swedish, although I'm a bit rusty. I could speak some Hausa at one
time, too, but all that's left of that is a couple stains on my tongue.) My nursing shoes sprinted down the
long corridors of a county jail, a renal-diabetic unit, two AIDS units and two long-term care facilities.
They tiptoed between patients lying on the floors of two over-crowded Nigerian hospitals and stood for
hours squelching in the heat of a Nigerian OR. For the last few years of my nursing career I was
HIV/AIDS certified. I retired in 2012.
While an Army brat I lived in (besides Ft. Ord) Hawai, Ohio, California, Virginia, and Germany. When
no longer "Army" I nested briefly in Colorado, Sweden, Nigeria, and several towns in California.
As you can guess, all that moving around has put me in a constant state of homesickness: I always long
to be somewhere else.
I currently call Colorado home. I share my space with a monster cat named Grey Bear and his two pet
parakeets, Bluey and Sapphire.
Dr. Lisa L. Smith, ASU Phoenix
Saraiya Kanning of Raebird Creations
Cover artist for EDEN
Psychotherapy Associates 43rd Annual
Winter Symposium, Colorado Springs
Elaine Goodrich-Premo, SheridanCollege WY
Dr. Patrick Griswold, MSU Denver
Current Reads:
* Ali and Nino, by Kurban Said (fiction)
*Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich (fiction)
* Schuster's and Gimbels, by Paul H. Geenen (history)
* A History of the Arab Peoples, by Albert Hourani
* Citadel of Faith, by Shoghi Effendi (spiritual guidance)
* The Scribe's Promise, by Jennifer Pollard (fiction)
* The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro (fiction)
Shirley Stroud Riddle
Stark State College, Canton OH