A fourth generation South African, I spent the first twenty-two years of my life in Zambia where I had a baboon for a pet, learned to tell a crocodile from a log, and how to whistle through my tongue. I emigrated to America, married the American man of my dreams and moved to Laguna Beach, California. Plagued by voices of the past, I wrote two YA novels, "Monkey's Wedding" and "Mine Dances," about family, race, and the dark magic of a society poised on the brink of change. And then my world fell apart when my marriage unraveled, along with a crisis back home in Africa, and the worsening health of my beloved dog. My memoir, "Loveyoubye: Holding Fast, Letting Go, And Then There's The Dog," resulted. I still live in Laguna Beach, with my two Staffordshire Bull Terriers with whom I fight for space in my bed.