She earned her Masters Degree in journalism from the University of California, Los Angeles, before setting out on a long career in television news. Covering history in the making stirred her interest in America's stories. In 2009, she returned to the Santa Clara Valley and published her first book about her home state: California Apricots: The Lost Orchards of Silicon Valley . She now writes for a number of local publications and serves on the board of the Los Altos History Museum. Historic Bay Area Visionaries, also from The History Press, is her fifth book, her second about California.