I am a retired international communications technology and international development specialist, a naturalized American, and a long-time resident of the DC area until moving to Santa Barbara, California. A job with an Australian refugee organization inspired me to write The Place We Come From, a narrative nonfiction awaiting publication with a chapter published in the annual print edition of Io Journal, (https://www.ioliteraryjournal.com). A self-published memoir, A Thousand Little Deaths: Growing Up Under Martial Law in the Philippines, (KDP, 2013) delves into my experience as a political prisoner under a dictatorship. I like to read, garden, listen to music, or travel when I'm not writing.