Sarah McCarthy is a fantasy writer living on Whidbey Island.
She grew up hiking and camping in the Cascade Mountains, went to the University of Washington for a degree in physics, moved to New York to study cognitive psychology, and then moved back to Seattle to start a physics tutoring business and write fantasy novels.
Fantasy novels are basically goal-oriented extended camping trips and magic is just alternate-reality physics, so this worked out well. All according to the non-existent plan.