After graduating from BCC, I traveled in Europe and the USSR. In 1978 I received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Montana, where I had the chance to study with the poet Richard Hugo. After returning from Russia in 1979, I began studies at the Slavic Lang. and Lit. Dept. at the U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, during which time I received an Avery Hopwood Award in Poetry. I studied with Joseph Brodsky and later translated a book of interviews about him. Most recently I translated the biography of the Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam. I have lived in Kiev since 1994, with one year stints in Moscow and Sakhalin, Russia. For many years I worked as a conference interpreter, until I became project manager on the CTR disarmament program in the FSU. I also write poetry in Russian and was included in "An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets," edited by V. Polukhina & D. Weissbort, University of Iowa Press, 2005.