Personal History
After my first two years in Dallas, Texas, my mother moved my older brother Tom and me to central California. We moved around in northern California for several years before then moving to Little Rock, Arkansas, for most of my school years. We left the West Coast and went South to be with my mother's family, the Leggetts. The patriarch of the family, my grandfather, owned one of the largest funeral home chains in the state, and he was in ill health, and my mother wanted us to get to know our grandfather before he died.  Happily, he lived for 10 more years. An interesting sidenote here is that my mother was a senior at Little Rock Central High in 1957 with the "Little Rock Nine," the nine black schoolchildren who integrated Central High, much to the dismay of Governor Orval Faubus and his state troopers. Needless to say, I have heard many sad stories about this turbulent year. A few years after my brother and I both left the state for various college excursions (Tom to Harvard, me to the University of New Mexico), my mom moved to Washington state for several years, but she's now moved back to her family's homeland of Arkansas.

After getting my undergraduate degree summa cum laude, I left Albuquerque (a location I absolutely loved) to do my graduate work in Athens, Georgia. Eight years later, I had earned a Master's Degree and a Ph.D. in English, the goal I set for myself as a young girl.

In August of 1998, I moved to Rice Lake, Wisconsin, to begin the next chapter in my life. I rose through the ranks from Assistant Professor (untenured) to Associate Professor (tenured, one year early).  I love my job on this wonderfully small campus in this wonderfully small town of 8,000. I love being part of the University of Wisconsin System from up here where there's no traffic, plenty of trees, free parking, and room and time to breathe. And yes, I love the weather here, including those days of being well below zero. (It's the heat and humidity that I couldn't tolerate.) Honestly, I couldn't have imagined a more peaceful, fulfilling life for myself. I have had quite a few encounters with wildlife here, including bald eagles, ospreys, marmots (or some other large rodent), bears, turtles, rabbits, ducks, geese, and my favorite local bird, the yellow-headed blackbird.

My older brother (by a year and a half), Tom Chick, is an actor and computer-game and movie reviewer living in Los Angeles. Watch for him on episodes of "The Office," "The West Wing," "Monty," "Living Single," "Beverly Hills 90210," "News Radio," "ER," and "Frasier," and in the movie Frank and Jesse with Rob Lowe and Bill Paxton and the short film "Shooters," which stirred up controversy due to its ominous foreshadowing of Princess Diana's death. Also watch for his name when you read reviews of new computer software and games. Actually, knowing Tom, you should watch for his name in general. Someone also made a Wikipedia page about him.

In January of 1999, my very significant partner Peter Davidson quit his job in Atlanta and moved up here. (Ask me about it sometime: it's one of the most romantic stories I know...though I suppose I'm biased!) Peter is the graphic designer for the Chronotype, Rice Lake's weekly newspaper. In October of 1999, Peter and I bought our first house together, a great old house with a solarium, enough yard for our salad garden, a kitchen big enough for both of us, and now a basement we can flee to in storms and hot weather. On October 14, 2000, Peter and I were married at Hunt Hill Nature Center and Audubon Sanctuary, 25 minutes north of Rice Lake. You can see some of our wedding pictures (and someday, we'll get some honeymoon pictures from Kaua'i up there, too). 

I've had cats all my life, so I suppose you could call me a cat person. My 17-year-old diabetic cat named Sebastian died in August of 2002 (after about 9 years of giving him shots twice a day), but we now have a half-Maine Coon cat named Hazel from the Humane Society in Athens, Georgia; an orange tabby named Jack from a vet's office here in Rice Lake, and two young brothers named Hobbes (orange) and Grendel (ocelot-looking markings) from the Barron County Humane Society.  

In recent years, when I'm not teaching, reading, doing research, working on committees, writing, editing, working with people from across the UW System, or collaborating with my colleague Holly Hassel, I'm watching movies, reading mystery novels (Nevada Barr and Harlan Coben are my favorites), cooking, playing with Peter one of our gaming consoles, working in the Rice Lake Public Library's Basement Bookstore, or enjoying the quiet.