Michaela MacColl (edit name/settings)

I grew up in upstate New York. After I graduated Vassar College, I came home for about an hour, then moved to Connecticut for graduate school at Yale University. I studied Russian and Soviet history. I visited the USSR (while it still was the USSR) in 1987 - when very few students could go there. It was deeply distressing when the wall came down and the whole Soviet bloc lost much of its mysterious quality.

So, I began applying to law schools and planning my wedding. My life changed when my fiancé called one day to ask if I would mind moving to France. Two months after the wedding, we moved to Toulouse France. We lived there for three years, a city filled with contradictions: aerospace technology side by side with medieval castles. Afterwards came a two year stint outside of Paris.

At that time, drawn by the vision of restaurants that would let you eat whenever you wanted to and genuine customer service, I returned home with my husband and settled in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I worked as a technical writer and project manager for internet design firms while I raised my two daughters. I led a girl scout troup, ran the elementary school book fairs for eight years running and built Habitat Houses.. I was also President of the International Visitors Committee of Connecticut which welcomes the United Nations to my hometown every year. And I began to write.

(From www.michaelamaccoll.com)