SUMMER PIERRE

Occupation: Musician & Artist Website: Summer Pierre Biography: Summer Pierre is a California-born artist who lives in Brooklyn, NY. As a musician she has toured extensively both the east and west coasts, and released her CD Far From Here from TPS Media. She creates an annual Great Gals Calendar, celebrating great women every day, and is currently at work on a series of corresponding cards. What do you do and how did you start? How old were you when you realized you wanted to do what you’re currently doing and how old were you when you actually began. I am a musician, cartoonist, painter, and a writer. My dad likes to say that I was drawing as soon as I could hold a pen. I don’t remember ever not being able to draw or wanting to draw. When I was...

TERA LEIGH

Occupation: Designer and Author Website: Tera Leigh Biography: Tera Leigh is the author of The Complete Book of Decorative Painting (North Light Books). She is spokesperson (and co-developer) of the Paintability line of painting products, and the Robert Simmons Sapphire brush line. She also writes columns for four painting magazines, and has had her designs published in many craft and home decor magazines. What do you do and how did you start? My first book, The Complete Book of Decorative Painting, was released in October 2001. I currently write columns for PaintWorks and Decorative Artist’s Workbook, and will be adding columns in Quick and Easy Painting and Tole World magazines. I also freelance for many other magazines. I committed myself to becoming an...

RUBY BAYAN

Occupation: Writer Website: Our Simple Joys Biography: I define myself as a lover of life. I celebrate life by learning and appreciating something new everyday so that I can inspire and motivate — push the body, feed the soul, live the moment, and appreciate the simple joys in life. I blend and channel all of these into my writing, my crafts, and other creative media I dabble in, like Web sites, charcoal portraits, and graphic designs. Freelance writing has been my focus these past six years, bylined in print and online. How old were you when you realised you wanted to do what you’re currently doing and how old were you when you actually began. I had been a diligent writer since I was in high school — when the surge of hormones found release in...

PAMELA MUELLER

Occupation: Author Website: Kiska Lore Biography: My beloved cat, Kiska, and I have written three children’s books: The Kiska Trilogy. Our books are entitled “The Bumpedy Road,” “Rain City Cats,” and “Eight Paws to Georgia.” I was raised in southern Oregon and attended Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where I received my B.A. in Spanish. After graduation, I worked for two years as a flight attendant for Pan American World Airlines. Then I married and moved to Mexico City, Mexico, where I lived for the next seventeen years. During my years in Mexico, I raised two lovely daughters, worked occasionally as a model, an actress and an English teacher. Then came the divorce and the difficult transition to a new life...

LAURIE WAGNER

Occupation: Word Wrangler Website: Word Wrangler Biography: I’m a non-fiction writer and a teacher of writing living in Alameda California. What do you do and how did you start? As a writer and a teacher I get to be all over the map, and my working life goes through a lot of phases and changes. For the last three years I have been teaching a personal essay writing class withWriters.com, and I teach wild writing class here at home as well as coaching writers on their book and essay projects. I also teach yoga/writing workshops with a friend. And I write, that’s the idea, to balance the stable teaching work with the more precarious writing world where you can’t depend on books and essays getting sold in a timely manner. Sometimes I get a call to...

KERI SMITH

Occupation: Artist and Writer Website: Keri Smith Biography: Keri Smith is an award winning illustrator and writer living in Canada. She has a wide following of clients in North America, Europe, and Japan. Most recently Forbes, The Boston Globe, Better Homes and Gardens, Ford Motor Co,, The Body Shop, The Washington Post, Teen People Magazine, Yahoo, Bon-Appetit, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Canadian Airlines, Utne Reader, and The Canadian Opera Company. She currently resides in a “magic cottage” outside of Toronto, painting, illustrating, creating, writing, reading, and living out loud. What do you do and how did you start?/How old were you when you realised you wanted to do what you’re currently doing and how old were you when you...