ABOUT LARA

Ah, bios are hard when you've been sick for over a year!

So here are a few facts about me instead:

I'm named for a literary character from the novel Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. But the inspiration for my name was actually the 1965 film starring Julie Christie which my fifteen year old mother loved. Nine years later I was born and she named me Lara.

My parents were hippies, though they still do not identify with that word. But thanks to their lifestyle choices, by whatever calling, I grew up on 24 acres of creek valley in southern Oregon, with a horse named Trigger, a lamb named Runtley, and a cat called Rosey Posey.  For a while we did not have running water or electricity, and some of my early memories involve taking a bath in a tin tub and a flicker of candlelight. This pretty much explains my entire life philosophy, spiritual sensibilities and why I am a writer. It is all in there.

I have three amazing children and a husband who is even stranger than I am.

I am the author of four books, not counting two chapbooks of poetry, a children's book and several informative pamphlets I gave out (to my ever tolerant family) at Christmas when I was in my early twenties involving recycling and organic foods.

I have an MFA in Fiction Writing from Pacific University and I was a professor there for four years.

Then I was briefly a ceremonial celebrant facilitating weddings and other rites of passage.

Finally, I was working toward my PhD in Philosophy and Religion and had just returned to university teaching when I became seriously ill for the first time.

Since then I've had a lot of medical challenges.

In 2024 during the release of Year of the Dark Goddess--a book about integrating difficult transitions--I had an abnormal MRI of my brain showing numerous lesions.

I've since been diagnosed with a blood clotting disorder that caused small strokes, impacting my brain, along with my hearing, vision and skin.

Writing and art were always my healing, but in this transition they are also now difficult for me.

What you see here is both hope and history.

Hope that I will continue to heal, emerge, repair.

A history of creation I wish to continue to share.

In here lives the story:

Whatever challenge you face, dear reader, it is also the bringer of gifts.

By this and every effort may the balance be regained.

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