Born in Northern Idaho, Rae Ellen Lee was raised on a stump
ranch before heading off to the big city of Butte,
Montana, to learn secretarial and modeling skills.
Lee landed an assignment with the Department of
State, Foreign Service, and served in Washington,
D.C., Switzerland, and Yugoslavia. Later, with
a degree in landscape architecture from the University
of Idaho, Lee worked for the U.S. Forest Service
in Idaho and Montana, where she designed clearcuts
that looked like natural clearings. Transferring
these creative skills to writing wasn’t the leap
one might imagine.
Lee’s first memoir, If
The Shoe Fits – The Adventures of a Reluctant
Boatfrau (Sheridan House, 2001), is a memoir
about moving from the mountains of Montana to
a sailboat with her husband, Tom. This book cured two cases of depression,
made a book group laugh and cry, and caused an
audience member at a rest home to laugh so hysterically
she lost her teeth. Essays from this book were
published in Living Aboard magazine.
Lee is also the author of The
Bluebird House (Five Star, 2002), a paranormal-historical-romance-adventure
novel with a mystery and some mountain man recipes.
This tale of a haunted brothel (one Lee lived
in and renovated) was a readers’ choice selection
of the Salt Lake City public library system.
Lee edited Powder Monkey
Tales – A Portrait in Stories told by her
father, Wesley “Spike” Moore, alias “Posthole
Augerson,” a charming geezer of some renown.
One story, The Osprey and the Fishing License,
was selected and performed in 1989 at the Idaho
Centennial Play, Idaho Tales, Tall and True.
Her humor book, A Field
Guide to North American Geezers, an affectionate
look at this little-understood species, is up
for adoption by a publisher who recognizes the
essential nature of geezers in our culture. A
second novel, Cheating The Hog, recently
completed, features four North Woods women with
dramatic personal lives who happen to work in
a sawmill. When tragedy strikes at the mill,
the women fight back with humor, determination
and strength of character to improve safety conditions
and put an end to sexual harassment. Inspired
by the life of one of Lee’s sisters, the story
is told in a vein similar to Nobody’s Fool.
After blowing around the
U.S. and the Caribbean like an erratic weather
system, Lee has settled in beautiful Bellingham,
Washington, where she hikes in the North Cascades
with her porch doodle, Sudsie, sketchbook in hand,
and occasionally shares tips on modeling and manners
with her now ex-husband, Rebekah Jane.