HEY THERE. I’M DOROTHY —
MORE ABOUT ME
My parents were Dutch immigrants who, after a long sea and rail journey from the Netherlands landed in the vast northern wilderness of British Columbia. There they struggled to make a life for themselves and their seven children.
I grew up Canadian, in B.C.’s beautiful Bulkley Valley, enjoying the run of my uncle’s farm and the river that ran through it. I spent days picking wild raspberries at the back of the farm with the black bears and went to sleep to the yip-howls of coyotes calling. From my attic room overlooking it all I wrote poems and stories to express my longing to experience the greater world beyond.
I left my protected valley to go to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver but quit after two years of study to find adventure. Canoeing in the Strait of Georgia, camping on its islands and along its banks satisfied the urge, and so did a hitchhiking venture through Europe. There I sustained myself by modeling at an art school and washing dishes in a Chinese Restaurant.
Back home a year later, it was time to get serious. I started my career delivering mail for Canada Post and working as a carpenter. Installing circular stairs. Trimming out doors and windows. Installing cabinets and hardware. Building fences. Like my parents before me, I eventually migrated for better opportunities, moving down the coast to San Francisco.
There I completed a BA in journalism at SF State University and launched my journalism career. I wrote for newspapers in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, and contributed articles to Newsweek Japan and Newsweek Korea. I later indulged myself and got a Master’s degree in Creative Writing and a teacher’s certificate from SF State.
More recently, I found the time to write my first novel. A little more tinkering, some negotiating the hills and valleys of publication and I’ll get it out to you soon. I promise. And I’ll share what I learn along the way. Sign up for my weekly blog at the bottom of the page to have ‘sparks of illumination’ sent to your mailbox.
Announcing My Upcoming Book
Perfect Optics
Dorothy Vriend
My Photographs
When I was a child I woke up at dawn one morning and looked out the window to find a red fox cutting across the snowy yard, where we lived in northern British Columbia. The image stayed with me and nurtured me throughout my life. Nature has its own pace, and when I slow down and spend time with it, it is revelatory. Through the photographs in my blog I hope to share my experience of the earth’s complexity and beauty, and inspire awe for this amazing eco-system we are born into. Most of them were taken along the Central Coast of California where I live with my husband Calvin. Click here to sign up for my weekly blog, “Sparks of Illumination” with nature photographs.