Kathleen McLaen has long been captivated and inspired by the courage and endurance of those who stand up for justice, even in the face of physical danger. She holds citizenship in the United States and in Ireland. A clear early childhood memory is that of listening to her father singing Irish songs of protest and of longing for a way of life lost to tyranny. She came of age in the time of the civil rights movements, including feminism. Her first public resistance came as a college junior challenging her department heads' teaching that a wife was obligated to vote as her husband did. The department heads' extended fury did not move her, but she stood alone. She married and spent the next two decades raising three sons and holding volunteer positions, before returning to college for a master's degree in counseling. She chose as clientele those who were marginalized by society and those with low incomes, and worked with them in agencies and private practice. After the Dayton Accords were signed, she traveled to Zagreb and Sarajevo with a group of friends looking to support the survivors of the genocide. She retired from practice when her husbands' health required a change in lifestyle and environment, and spent more than a decade processing her experience in the Balkans before she began writing the story.
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