Judy Shimek Drechsler has lived in an 1867 renovated Victorian house in Port Townsend, Washington (“a charming Victorian Seaport Village, “ she calls it) for the past 20 years, with her dog Emma. She stays busy tutoring foster children, singing, playing bridge, working out, and keeping up with a vigorous yoga practice. Most of Judy's teaching career was spent in Anchorage, Alaska, where she taught literacy courses for the University of Alaska-Anchorage and was a full time primary teacher in the Anchorage School District. Judy says poetry speaks most clearly to her when writing about her family and when major life changes hit—“as they are wont to do as you get older,” she adds. Judy published her first book, Falling into One, in 2017.