Born and raised in sunny Southern California, I left the smogging crowds for the green foothills of Boulder, Colorado, in pursuit of higher education and a smaller community. I was dragged back to California six years later, this time to the San Francisco Bay Area, because my advisor took a job at Stanford. There I found I had a penchant for writing. I spent a summer in Princeton, New Jersey, where the lightning bugs mesmerized me. I spent another year in Santa Cruz, California, in UCSC's science writing program before I ended up at the INEEL -- for a six-month internship -- in summer 1998. I stayed. In Idaho, at least.
Even compared to sunny SoCal's smog-enriched ocean sunsets, southeast Idaho has the most consistently brilliant sunsets I've ever seen. So far.
My full name is Mary Theresa Laureen Beckman -- I'm named after an aunt, my mother and a priest from the hospital where my mom gave birth. I'm a registered Libertarian (accident of college), mostly I vote Democratic, SelectSmart says I'm a socialist and my brothers call me "feminist."
