The Wonderful Life of Patricia Mees Armstrong

Patricia Mees Armstrong, a native of New Jersey, was a world traveler with long careers in writing and education. She held degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, where she and her husband, Richard, lived for most of the last 40 years. Her love of Ireland was aided by spending several extended periods living in the Republic of Ireland, where she held dual citizenship.

She survived breast cancer the first time, but alas, not the second time it touched her life. She and her husband have three sons and seventeen grandchildren.

Patricia won numerous awards and writing fellowships for her poetry, adult fiction and essays. In 1999 she received cash awards for her work from the Oregon Literary Arts, Inc., and from Willamette Writers, Portland, Oregon. She enjoyed writing residencies from the Northwest Writing Institute, Lewis and Clark College, and the Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest Illinois. Her other publications include: Good Causes and Warm Corners (1976), The Rain Bids Me Listen (1980), Touched and Baffled (1983), Seaweed and Tea (1985), Daring to Dance, Refusing to Die (1997; second printing 2002, both with proceeds going to fund breast cancer research), On the Road to Laragh and Beyond (2001; second printing 2002), Birch: A Memoir (2002), The Fattest Woman in Ireland and Other Stories (2003), and A Life on Paper, Poems of Survivial (2004).