Rita Robinson has lived in California since age 5, a transplant from Ohio. She grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in a mountain community. Her reading habits, like her writing choices, prove eclectic with favorite fiction and nonfiction books spanning the classics to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and A Fine Balance, to The Age of American Unreason and The Road. Favorite authors range from Margaret Atwood and Gabriel Garcia Marquez to former columnists Erma Bombeck, Mike Royko, and too many others to name. But since about age 6 she's been a newspaper hound and eventually worked as a fulltime reporter for several years before turning to freelance writing fulltime. She writes both fiction and nonfiction, mostly derived from curiosity and partly to answer her own questions about life. A quote from Walker Evans given in 1933 at the first one-man photographic exhibition by the new Museum of Modern Art speaks of a writer's life. "Stare, pry, listen, and eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." For now she's working on a fiction book, and writing a column, Roaming America on the Cheap, for Senior Wire News Service, http://www.seniorwire.net/ . She's available on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and her website http://ontheroadwriters.com Rita Robinson's 11 published books include Grand Old Hotels of Southern and Central California, published by Epicenter Press; Survivors of Suicide; When Your Parents Need You; The Palm: A Guide to Your Hidden Potential; Discover Yourself Through Palm Reading; Friends: How to Make and Keep Them; Center of the World: Native American Spirituality; and Exploring Native American Wisdom, all from New Page Books, an imprint of Career Press. Also, The Hands of Health; and Color Your World: Using the Power of Color and Light in Your Life, both published by Newcastle Publishing Inc., and When Women Choose to Be Single, published by IBS Press. Additionally Robinson has edited and provided photograph and graphics for New Page Books, (The Benham Book of Palmistry); and for Rockefeller Publishing (The Naturalist Collector).Her approximate 1,500 published magazine articles, appearing on four continents, include Westways, Los Angeles Magazine, Men's Fitness, Reader's Digest, Cosmopolitan, First for Women, Pro-Trucker, Playgirl, The Acorn, Let's Live, Health Magazine, Trip & Tour, Kiwanis, and Parenting Magazine to name a few. Some of her photo work is included in three of her books, and several magazine articles.She has also conducted writing extension classes and workshops at seven community colleges, taught and lectured at several conferences, including the Maui Writer's Retreat, as well as working as a private writing coach and editor. She has been an instructor with Writer's Digest's WOW since its inception in 2002. She graduated from Valley College, San Bernardino, California with an AA, and has attended Cal State University, San Bernardino.Awards include several from the Press Club of Southern California: 1st Place, Feature Story; 1st Place, Freelance Story; Best Layout/Women's Page, Best Series, 1st Place, Lifestyle Feature, Best Series, Best Lifestyle Feature; Best Commentary; Best Review; and Sweepstakes Award, Writing.