Karin Esterhammer

"So Happiness to Meet You" won the Nautilus Book Awards Silver Medal for 2017. I was born in a backwater town in Oregon—Portland—where it rained throughout my entire childhood. I got a degree in journalism, figuring it would be a long, enduring career because—of course—people will ALWAYS read newspapers. I worked at the Los Angeles Times as an editor, writer, and travel columnist for 15 years. In between, I published essays in the books Chocolate for a Woman’s Spirit and Chocolate for a Mother’s Heart and wrote for Asia Life magazine, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Daily News, Orlando Sentinel and The Standard—China's Business Newspaper. Earlier in my career, I wrote for a bunch of tiny newspapers across the country that still owe me money.