Welcome!

My husband, Warren, and I have made our home in southern New Jersey for more than four decades. Warren made his living as a farmer, woodcutter, nurseryman, beekeeper, and cook. I spent the first half of my career working as a technical writer and editor and, after the web erupted in the mid-1990s, the second half as a web developer. Now that we're old, retired guys, Warren keeps a few honeybee hives and a large garden. I walk and write.

I've been writing poetry since the 1970s, when I studied for three years in the writing program at University of Florida. Over the years, most of what I've written has been published, but while I was working for a living, my attention was diverted and my output was low. Since I've retired, my creative process has, gratifyingly, accelerated.

Versions of this site have been around in one form or another since 1997, first as databear.com, and now under my own name. Old versions of the site, and a curious look into what passed for web work in the very early days of the web, are archived in the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine."

One of the first pieces I published on the web was a photo-essay about Warren hiving a swarm back in the early 1980s, when Warren and I were still a new item. It's been off and on popular over the years, was even reprinted once that I know about, so I've kept it up and running, as a kind of live web artifact.

Almost as long as I've kept this site, I've been building my photo collection and organizing it. Some years ago, I participated in Flickr's "365 Days" project. Doing this stretched some creative muscles. I recommend undertaking something like this for improving skills. Daily exercise works as well for photography as for writing as for fitness.

I spend far too much time recently on Twitter, where I erupt into commentary every now and then. I keep a Facebook wall, to keep in touch with friends old and new. My Instagram account currently gathers dust. I'll work on that.