I write, love to write, love people and writing about people.  I have big curiosity about most things, especially about how people navigate life. I started keeping notebooks at the age of eight after reading what became my favorite book, Harriet-the-Spy. My first entry: Roland has a hole in his pants right there.

I've written seven books for children and adults. My most recent, Other People's Dirt, was translated into French, Italian, German and Chinese.

I've just started writing a weekly feature called "Change Agents" for the Bay Citizen/Center for Investigative Reporting about those among us who move, shake, and fight for a better world. Up until a nanosecond ago I wrote a weekly column for the Sunday New York Times/Bay Citizen.  Called Local Intel, it forced me into the gritty details of many Bay Area locales.  You can read a bunch here.  Before that, I wrote a feature for the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle called On the Couch. It was a column about couples – how they met, what they believe - illuminating the diversity of the Bay Area. I fell in love with the Bay Area every week.

I’ve published in The Washington Post Magazine, Forbes, Health, San Francisco Magazine, Salon, Ms, Cosmopolitan, and the New York Times Magazine, among many, many others. I've been a frequent contributor to All Things Considered and other programs on National Public Radio.  I recently wrote about cool people in my beloved Oakland for a giant spread on MSN.com.

When I’m not writing, I'm surfing, traveling to out-there places, or running my North Oakland martial arts school, Studio Naga. It's one of the few places outside of Indonesia where you can study Poekoelan Tjimindie Tulen, a beautiful art from Central Java.

I consider myself lucky, which is the name of my cat.