I’m a Canadian science writer who specializes in archaeology.  My work as a writer takes me to strange places and often leads to odd encounters with both the living and the dead–subjects I like to write about in books and magazine articles. I freelance for Science, Scientific American, National Geographic, and Canadian Geographic, and I’m one of three founders of Last Word on Nothing.com.

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, where my dad was a professional hockey player and my entire family was nuts about hockey. Sadly I failed to inherit the hockey gene, and must now be the only Canadian on the planet who is ambivalent about the game.

Before I took up writing, I was (very briefly) a furniture polisher, failed waitress, summons server, (and for extended periods) a museum researcher and book editor.

I began freelance writing when I moved to Vancouver and since then I’ve traveled extensively to cover stories–from the Sahara to Baffin Island and from the Atacama to Tonga. The best plane trip I ever took was in the backseat of an F-18 fighter jet, where I flew upside down 200 feet over the treeline in northern Alberta.

I’m a fair-weather runner and a fanatic when it comes to tennis. I play the game year round, but am welded to the TV during the Australian Open and the other grand slams. I live a block and a half away from a salmon stream, and I walk along it most mornings, coffee cup in hand, with my husband Geoff and our labrador retriever Max.