Born and raised in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Theresa Jenner Garrido graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in English and spent the next twenty-plus years teaching middle school. She retired early to devote more time and energy to writing and traveling. She has visited forty-two of our fifty states and hopes to add the rest to her list before long. Besides Washington State, she has made her home in Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, where she currently resides with her retired engineer husband and rescue dog and cat.