Laurie Eckhout was born in Seattle, 1958, and moved to Juneau, Alaska as a small child. She has taken classes at the University of Alaska, Southeast on and off over the past 20-plus years and works from home managing a data entry contract. Hobbies include gardening, painting, reading, writing and collecting. She has had poems published in the UAS literary journal, Tidal Echoes, and also had poems published in the magazine, Alaska Women Speak. In 2009, she started a blog titled Sylvia and Ted Collection: http://sylviaandtedcollection.blogspot.com/ In her mid-40s, she got her first tatoo: a life-like bee on her leg in honor of her two-decade long interest in Plath.