Musee Mechanique at Art Center at the Old Library

Bernadette loves the Pacific Northwest. She spent her childhood in Seattle, surrounded by beautiful mountains, listening to KJR (which played top 40 hits back then), and daydreaming (the first stage of writing). After high school, she studied pre-engineering at the University of Washington for two years before love—and a growing awareness that she was indifferent to Differential Equations—intervened. Newly wed, she and her husband moved to Orcas Island where the idea of being a writer took hold. She was working at the local bank when she met one of the island’s most famous residents, Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. She’s sure he doesn’t remember the occasion, but she recalls clearly how very kind he was. She told him she was thinking of writing, and he smiled gently and told her not to think, do. Writers write.

R. Gregory Nokes retired in 2003 after 43 years in journalism, including 25 years with The Associated Press and 15 years with The Oregonian in Portland. While with The AP, he was stationed in New York, San Juan, Buenos Aires and Washington, D.C., where he served as both an economics and diplomatic correspondent. He traveled to more than 50 countries during his career.