Final Choices

Lydia Parks grew up in New Orleans, the city of music, fun, and food. After a year of college, she dropped out and ran off to Alaska to enjoy a taste of the Wild West pipeline days. Three years later, tired of working for minimum wage, Lydia returned to the South and earned a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. As a civil engineer for the government, she spends a lot of time out in the woods, and was even sent to Siberia for a brief assignment. While moving around, she stumbled onto the joy of her life—writing.