Andrea A. Firth is a freelance journalist and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Saint Mary's College of California where she is adjunct faculty and is the cofounder of Diablo Writers’ Workshop where she teaches creative writing. Originally from the Philadelphia area, she spent twenty years in Chicago before landing on the west coast where she loves hiking on the beaches and in the hills with her husband and dog and open water swimming with anyone willing to jump in with her.