I grew up wanting to tell stories, and eventually that led to a writing career. I currently live in California, and when I'm not in one of our national parks, I'm thinking about going to one of our national parks. The picture above is from a trip I took to Death Valley with my mom.

Before I settled on writing as something I wanted to do for a living, I briefly toyed with becoming a marine biologist, an astronaut, or a paleontologist. I chucked the marine biology career because a teacher told me I'd probably spend more time cutting open animals than I would spend exploring the sea in a diving suit.

Despite my love of astronaut ice cream, I was never able to convince NASA to let me pilot one of their shuttles. And the paleontology gig never came to be because I realized I didn't want to study dinosaurs... I wanted to make movies or write stories about them. Why be a scientist when you can create living, breathing dinosaurs with your imagination? No dusty digging required.

So that's what I learned to do. I learned the art of storytelling with about $145,000 spent on seven years of school. I have a BA from Montana State and an MFA from Loyola Marymount. Pricey stuff, that education. And while I'll probably never pay off those loans, I wouldn't trade a minute of my education.