About the Author
A former social worker, a pedestrian car accident abruptly ended my career on 1/6/94 as I
walked my two dogs. I came home two months later to a different world, disabled from a
traumatic brain injury. I never expected to lose part of my mobility, memory or my career at the
age of 39. Nonetheless, after a long recovery, I re-invented myself as all around volunteer,
returning to animal shelters after I moved to Arizona. I became a pet therapist visiting a nursing
home and a homeless family shelter. I assisted at the International Rescue Committee teaching
English as a second language to refugees. I volunteered with former AZ Governor Janet
Napolitano. I served with the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, the AZ Department of
Economic Security and a children’s reading program. I now volunteer with Sky Harbor Airport,
the Arizona Animal Welfare League, and Helping Hands for Relief and Development, a global
humanitarian agency.
My articles have appeared in Animal Wellness, Animal Sheltering, the Journal of the American
Veterinary Medical Association, the Phoenix Business Journal, the Sierra Club’s magazine,
Landscape Management, Dogs in Canada, Back Home, I Love Cats, Cat Fancy, Dog Fancy, the
Latham Letter, NACA News, the Arizona Republic, Arizona Capitol Times, Indian Country
Today, the journal Social Work, Fostering Families Today, American Jails, Airports of the
World, Potato Soup Journal, Literary Yard, Breath and Shadow and others. I contributed a
chapter to Dogs and the Women Who Love Them, published by The New World Library (2010)
and wrote a breed specific book for TFH Publications in 2010. I self-published a book called
Nobody’s Pets (told also from the animal POV) in 2001 that sold 3,000 copies. I reviewed books
for Animal People and reported for the AZ Muslim Voice.