Ann fell in love with the Amherst Writers and Artists method because of the way it supports writers in finding and telling the stories they may not know they need to write. She got her AWA certification in Chicago and has led groups in Sacramento and Coronado as well as at SDWI. Ann began writing fiction after a career in journalism and political communications. She was a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Associated Press, and wrote editorials for The Sacramento Bee. Her articles and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Magazine, and California Lawyer magazine. She has taught journalism at California State University, Sacramento and American River College. She has been a ghostwriter, a speechwriter, and a communications director for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. After taking early retirement, she began writing what she wanted — personal essays for Open Salon, short stories and her first novel, The Oakland Mets. An excerpt of that novel was published in the tenth edition of A Year in Ink.