After decades of attempting to absorb the literature of the world (no less), Tolkien was a revelation, turning medieval sagas into entertainment with a message. As a journalist I clearly saw my social obligation to help make the world a better place, but it took half a lifetime to see that all we can ever change is ourselves, and even longer to realize that no rational decision will ever get us there. Change requires all our passion, a spellbinding story rather than a textbook of neurolinguistic processing.

2 MA, several non-fiction titles, an award for the manuscrit of a children's book from the German Schneider Verlag, participation in an anthology of poems by the German Bert Schlender Verlag, writer-in-residence in 2005 at Gunnarsstofnun, Iceland

THE WOMAN AND THE RAVEN - a new fantasy title by Marlene vor der Hake A long, long time ago when elves and trolls still roamed the earth, a woman at the icy end of the sea yearns to reach the stars, but her broomstick refuses to fly. When a mysterious raven lures her into daunting adventures, she learns that neither ghosts nor monsters are her deadliest adversaries, but the whisperings of her own fears. Fighting her way through her darkest nightmares the woman prevails and becomes who she is meant to be. THE WOMAN AND THE RAVEN is a poetic myth of the importance of the words we say to ourselves, and others. "A story of incantatory power and wistful fantasy" New York Times best-selling author Ellen Tanner Marsh