Geraldine O'Connell Cusack was born and raised in the South Bronx at a time when that community was known as Fort Apache. It was a bubbling mix of first-generation Irish, Italian, Russian, German, and Puerto Rican immigrants - some of whom became lawyers and legislators - and many of whom fell foul of the law. Geraldine became a teacher and returned to work in her old public school on Brown Place. In time, she moved on with her four daughters to live on Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, where she worked with Native Americans in developing their spoken Miccosukee language into written form. From there she travelled to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile and established a supplementary education programme for dependent children of expatriate workers. Her next educational venture took her to Tanzania, where she joined an Irish Aid project in the northern town of Korogwe and worked for five years developing Kiswahili language textbooks for the national primary schools. Geraldine is the author of a personal memoir, Children of the Far-Flung, which also relates the story of her sister Deirdre O'Connell. Deirdre founded Dublin Focus Theatre and taught the Stanislavsky acting method for over 40 years. She was married to Dubliner singer Luke Kelly. Geraldine's second book, Winds The Road North, is both a personal account and observational study of life in the developing world of Africa. She has just completed the first book in an adventure series for young readers. Set in the old city of Dublin in 2008, Spirits of Wood Quay is now available, along with Geraldine's other works, on Amazon.com.