About Marcia

My love of writing, which took on a practical bent during my career as a lawyer, has become a source of satisfaction during retirement. When coupled with a passion for history and curiosity about ancestry, my literary interests have included personal heritage and the part my forebears might have played in the flow of history.

This focus has now led to two books, the latest of which, Tangled Roots, takes place in the colony of Pennsylvania during the mid-1700s and is told in the fictional voices of three of my ancestors.

Prior to becoming a writer, I had an unusually interesting professional life, doing legal transactional work for technology companies during a time of explosive growth in Silicon Valley.

Between graduating from Vanderbilt with a degree in French literature (it never having occurred to me I'd have to earn a living) and starting Stanford Law School fifteen years later as a single parent of two young children, I found my way to California at the peak of the hippie revolution.

I've been a newspaper reporter in Houston and partner in a Silicon Valley law firm, a high school teacher and executive of a software company. I've advocated for the U.S. software industry in Washington and Brussels and Beijing as Chair of the Business Software Alliance, chaired the administrative board of the Palo Alto United Methodist Church and led encounter groups and Al-Anon groups and support groups for spasmodic dysphonia.

I live in Palo Alto, California with my husband Nathaniel Sterling, former Executive Director of the California Law Revision Commission. Every summer Nat and I host Cousin Camp for our seven children and their families, including our ten grandchildren.