Monique was born on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Daughter of a Swiss Hotel Manager/Executive and a Mexican-Apache mother, she lived in Guatemala, Mexico City, Kansas, New York and Ft Lauderdale, Florida and Scottsdale, Arizona. At the age of 10 she knew she wanted to be a writer so she excelled at all her English classes and contributed regularly to the high school paper. But her father insisted, “Journalism is breadless and you’ll end up under a bridge” so she studied Business Administration instead. After 5 semesters she ran away with a diplomat’s son to Paris, where she was sure the atmosphere would bring out the Anaiis Nin in her.

However, life had other plans and she ended up in Germany, with her German husband (the diplomat’s son) and 3 well-read children. In her late 30’s Monique attended Lesley University Residence Program and earned her B.A. with a major in creative non-fiction writing. She was mentored by John de Cuevas, a Harvard science professor. Monique wrote her own memoir as part of her thesis. She received a grant from her professor to work with a professional writer to extract thesis vignettes and re-work them into short stories.

Monique went to work for Hewlett Packard as an IT account manager for the next 20 years. She enjoys journaling, writing real letters and crafting speeches for Toastmasters, where she has been a member for over 10 years. She is President of the Stuttgart International Toastmaster’s Club. Monique hopes to revive the creative writer again by joining WiS and being surrounded by so many talented and motivated writers. “