Cheryl is studying to become a yoga instructor and writes short pieces about svanasana and other poses.
Cheryl has completed a novel about Berhane, son of an Ethiopian mother and Eritrean father, conscripted by his blind uncle to be the old man’s eyes during the Ethiopian-Eritrean war, a story inspired by Cheryl’s experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Horn of Africa.
She won the UC Berkeley Strout Prize for a short story about a young woman’s struggle to reconnect to her drug dealing brother and her working class town after attempting to leave them behind.
Cheryl recently completed an “as-told-to” memoir of a loving retiree inventing an encore career called “Pet Sitting” in beautiful Carson Valley, Nevada, caring for the booming community’s beloved and oddly assorted animals.
Cheryl is writing a memoir with an edge of humor about two brothers raised in a suburban household, now living in near squalor in one of the more affluent suburban towns in California’s Bay Area.