Headwinds (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780991421312)

A high school English and history teacher for twenty years, Gretchen Wing pushed her students to find their voices through writing, and to pay attention to the voices of others through reading. Now, she applies that same energy to a (fictional) girl who needs empowerment and finds it, not in magic as she hopes, but in herself. Gretchen's short stories have been published in the online journal SHARK REEF, and she writes a regular column for her local paper, Islands' Weekly of Lopez Island, Washington. She is also a budding singer/songwriter, performing with the group Chicken Biscuit, and she blogs regularly at gretchenkwing.wordpress.com. When not writing or playing guitar, Gretchen is a baker at Holly B's Bakery ("Holly's Buns Are Best"), and enjoys running, biking, backpacking, cooking, reading, and taking naps to recover from all of the above. Gretchen was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, before becoming a Pacific Northwesterner in 1990. She holds a B.A. in English from Harvard University and a Master's in History from the University of Washington. She and her husband have two grown children, are getting used to life after dogs, and love to go on sushi dates.