I am an attorney, writer/researcher and "Hanford Downwinder." That means I was born and raised in the 1950s within the radioactive shadow of the Hanford nuclear weapons production facility in southeastern Washington State. Hanford produced the majority of the plutonium used by the US nuclear weapons program during WWII and throughout the Cold War era. Hanford's plutonium fueled both the Trinity Test in July of 1945 (the first test of an atomic weapon) and the atomic bomb that decimated Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. I lost my family to radiogenic cancers, and I have a number of health issues that I believe were caused by my childhood exposure to Hanford's decades of covert, airborne radiation releases, the byproducts of plutonium production at the facility.

I have always loved writing, and have authored a published law review article on Hanford, as well as a chapter in a book dealing with environmental exposures. I also have several published newspaper articles and OpEds under my belt.

I am so excited to be a member of the Author's Guild, and recently published my first book, The Hanford Plantiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice, (University of Kansas Press), addressing the human toll of nuclear weapons production.

www.trishapritikin.com