About Diana
Diana was born in Rochester, New York, and has master degrees in both Education and Public Health. After completing her graduate studies, she and her Canadian husband headed to Thailand with two bulky backpacks to work in Cambodian refugee camps. Two kids, and ten years later, Diana moved to live and work in six other countries over the next twenty-five years: Vietnam, Romania, India, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, and even North Korea. Diana is a life-long traveler and adventurer having traveled to over fifty countries. She has seen the horrific impact of war and natural disasters, but also has witnessed the inspiring power of human resilience and caring. Diana divides her time between Chiang Mai (Thailand), Colorado, and Toronto (Canada) to join writing conferences, give talks, and visit her two married sons. Her hobbies include puppetry, story-telling, yoga, hiking, animal watching and her favorite pastime––discovering the beauty of diverse cultures around our world, which inspires her writing. Diana is fluent in Thai which she uses daily when in Thailand.
Some of Diana's most unusual adventures to date have included:
Conducting a participatory training for teachers in Pyongyang, North Korea at the invitation of the Government—amazed that they invited an American!
Training television staff in Laos in story-telling techniques for the first nationally-produced children’s television program called “My Village”.
Working in remote hill tribe villages in Laos developing low-cost teaching materials for community-based kindergartens.
Training illiterate women to run a day-care center in a coastal fishing village in southern India after their center was destroyed in the 2004 Tsunami.
Helping diffuse ethnic tensions between Romanian and Hungarian teachers in Transylvania, Romania by leading Peace Education workshops.
Convincing communist authorities in Hanoi, Vietnam to give her permission to open the first private preschool in Hanoi.
Coordinating humanitarian assistance in Cambodian Refugee camps (including a Khmer Rouge camp) on the Thai-Cambodian border.
Training a nutrition survey team in Cap Haitian, Haiti, in the Haitian creole language.
And . . . what her husband is most proud of . . . in rural Thailand, successfully backing away from a cobra standing with its hood fully extended, ready to strike!
Diana is a member of SCBWI and an amazing online critique group called Write Away that includes five published children’s book authors including a Crystal Kite award winner.
Some Favorite Quotes:
“Nature can win if we give her a chance” - Jane Goodall
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” - Mark Twain