About Marianne

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Our house was a 30 minute bicycle-ride from the beach, past wetlands that still attract great blue herons, grebes and other waterfowl. Each summer I would spend a week or more in the mountains at my grandmother’s cabin where gray squirrels and jays would wait in the pine trees for the peanuts and dry bread we’d put on the feeder tray. My dad loved to go deep sea fishing and sometimes I’d go with him, leaving the house when it was still dark so that we could be on the ocean at dawn. The nature I would later write about was all around me.

Growing up, I had no brothers or sisters. But I loved to read - mostly comic books at first, then Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys adventures – and the stories kept me company. I also loved to draw animals and would copy pictures from the encyclopedia or from magazines like National Geographic. I wrote stories, too. My best friend and I would write during school when we were bored in class. In our stories, life was always exciting and we were always the heroes.

But I never imagined I would grow up to be a writer. I wanted to be a biologist. I wanted to sit on a mountain somewhere and study bears or moose. I wanted to be the Jane Goodall of North America. After I graduated from college, my first job was as a tour guide and natural science illustrator at a botanic garden. Later I worked as an elementary school science teacher, a writer for the US Forest Service and an education specialist for a mosquito control district. All my jobs required me to create educational material and I liked sharing what I’d learned through my writing and artwork.

That was when I realized that I wanted to become a writer. Most of my writing is non-fiction natural science. I write and illustrate books about what I love the most: common plants and animals. Through the window of my home office, I can see hillsides with yucca and buckwheat. Turkey vultures circle in the sky and mule deer browse on our garden plants (alas). And I continue to feel fortunate and excited that I have a wonderful opportunity as a writer to share this amazing natural world and the adventures that can be found “right outside our door.”

Click Here to Read an interview of Marianne in the February 2004 
newsletter of the Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California