Having a Portuguese poet grandfather and a no-nonsense, Swedish grandmother with secrets, I was born with stories to tell.

With a non-profit career spanning 25 years, I have served as executive director with the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides (www.pesticide.org) since 2009. My agricultural and environmental writing includes reports, issue briefs, grants, and the technical daily writing of running a non-profit.

My passion for creative writing was rediscovered in 2016 during a three-day novel writing workshop held on an evergreen topped headland on the Oregon Coast. Soon after, I launched my freelance writing business and started my first novel of historical fiction loosely based on my grandfather’s life. My blog and freelance writing focuses on conservation, environmentalism, gardening, food, and travel.

I earned a BA with honors in International Studies and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oregon and a MS in Agricultural Extension and Adult Education with a minor in Conservation and Sustainable Development from Cornell University.

I have traveled extensively, both domestically and internationally, including a stint in the early 90s living and working in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for 13 months during a coalition government where tanks and military curfews were a daily occurrence.

When not trying to save the world and pursuing my writing projects you will find me in my French inspired, organic garden and taking off on the next adventure with my much-loved husband who fancies himself my muse. I tend to one houseplant, a Bonsai whose name cannot be repeated here.

*The views expressed here are Kim Leval’s and do not reflect the views of her employer.