Kate Evans taught at UCSC in Porter, Kresge, and Cowell Colleges and lived in Santa Cruz three times, starting in the early 1990s. Portions of both of her memoirs take place in Santa Cruz. She is the author of eight books, including Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit & Travel (Coyote Creek Books, 978-0996182423) winner of the Bisexual Book Award for Best Memoir, and Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life (forthcoming May 15 from Tehom Center Publishing/Parson's Porch 978-1960326133). Her essays, stories, and poems have appeared in more than 50 outlets, including HuffPost, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping,  Zyzzyva, and Santa Monica Review. A recipient of a PhD in Education from the University of Washington, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English from San Jose State University, where she is Emeritus Faculty. http://www.kateevanswriter.com

About Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life: From a Malaysian penthouse overlooking the turquoise Strait of Malacca, to a miniscule, under-furnished apartment in West Hollywood, Kate and her husband Dave travel the world living in other people’s houses. They tend to their gardens, sleep in their beds, and care for their pets. Along the way, other opportunities appear and they follow: working and living in China, attending a wedding in Vietnam, and tracking wild animals in Indonesia. Eventually they buy a casita in Mexico that is nearly blown away in a hurricane, but they continue wayfaring, creating a web of connection with others throughout the world. In Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life, Kate explores how this unconventional lifestyle, launched upon her early retirement, makes her feel alternately free and unsettled—especially as she faces a dire medical emergency requiring surgery and the pandemic hits. All along the journey, she questions what “home” really means.

Dena Moes lived in Santa Cruz for five years and had her first baby there. She is still intimate friends with the women from her mother/baby group. That baby grew up to return to her place of birth and attend UCSC, where she graduated in June. Dena is award winning author, RN, and certified nurse-midwife. She earned her Bachelors of the Arts in Literature and Women’s Studies from Yale University and a Master’s of Science in Nursing also from Yale University, so she has the unique qualifications of being both a writer and a healthcare professional. Dena became a midwife in her early twenties because she wanted a hands-on career in service to the women of the world. Now she is pulling all her strengths together, to write books that will smash the patriarchy, one chapter at a time. The Buddha Sat Right Here (She Writes Press, 978-1631525612) is a travel memoir that won eight book awards, including the 2019 Readers' Favorite Gold Medal in Travel, the 2019 International Book Awards Winner in Religion: Eastern, the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Winner in Travel/Travel Guide and the 2019 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Travel Essay. Her essays have been published in The Daily Beast, Grown and Flown, the Wisdom Daily, The Mindful Word, Midwifery Today, Mutha, the Manifest-Station, Minerva Rising and the Demeter Press anthology Travellin’ Mama. Her second book, It's Your Body: The Young Woman's Guide to Empowered Sexual Health is forthcoming next year through Countryman Press. http://www.denamoes.com

About The Buddha Sat Right Here: Dena was a busy midwife trapped on the hamster wheel of working motherhood. Adam was an eccentric Buddhist yogi passing as a hard-working dad. Bella was fourteen and wanted to be normal. Sophia was up for anything that involved skipping school. Together, they shouldered backpacks, walked away from their California life of all-night births, carpool schedules, and Cal Skate, and criss-crossed India and Nepal for eight months—a journey that led them to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the tree where the Buddha sat, and the arms of Amma the Divine Mother. From the banks of the Ganges to the Himalayan roof of the world, this enthralling memoir is an unforgettable odyssey, a moving meditation on modern family life, and a spiritual quest, written with humor and honesty—and filled with love and awe.

Andrea Ross attended UCSC from 1985-1989 and majored in Community Studies. While living in Santa Cruz, she worked at the Davenport Migrant Resource Center and in Watsonville helping undocumented residents apply for citizenship. In Oct 1989, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit, she was living North of Santa Cruz and working at an environmental education center. Portions of her book, Unnatural Selection, take place in Santa Cruz, at UCSC, in Capitola, Pescadero and Loma Mar. She is the author of Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness, from CavanKerry Press (978-1933880839). Her writing has appeared in Huffington Post, The Conversation, Ploughshares, Terrain, Bay Nature, and many other print and online outlets. She has received fellowships and awards from the California Arts Council, the Mesa Refuge, and Bread Loaf. Once a park service ranger and a wilderness guide, Andrea now teaches in the University Writing Program at UC Davis. When she’s not writing or teaching, she’s usually adventuring in the backcountry. She lives in northern California with her family. http://www.andrearosswriter.com


About Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness: Adopted at birth, Andrea Ross grew up inhabiting two ecosystems: one was her tangible, adoptive family, the other her birth family, whose mysterious landscape was hidden from her. In her coming-of-age memoir Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness (CavanKerry Press, 2021) Ross narrates how in her early twenties, while working as a ranger in Grand Canyon National Park, she embarked on a journey to discover where she came from and, ultimately, who she was. After many missteps and dead ends, Ross uncovered her heartbreaking and inspiring origin story and began navigating the complicated turns of reuniting with her birth parents and their new families. Through backcountry travel in the American West, she also came to understand her place in the world, realizing that her true identity lay not in a choice between adopted or biological parents, but in an expansion of the concept of family.