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June M. Smith, Capitola, CA - Heidi Nygen

I am the retired owner of a northern California winery with dozens of food, wine, travel and other feature stories to my credit. I continue to promote the wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I have always loved to write. My first memory is of writing and reading an ongoing saga to my classmates in grade school class. I attended the same high school as Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois and that, combined with the fact that my grandfather wrote a newspaper column, may be what has motivated my passion for writing.

While in the wine business, I met a variety of interesting people who offered out-of-the-ordinary opportunities for feature stories, like working as an extra in over 20 movies and commercials filmed in the Bay Area. In our semi-retirement years, my late husband Jim and I were able to travel, giving me more material for stories, such as an inspirational adventure swimming with wild dolphins on the big island of Hawaii.

I am fortunate that my four grown children, plus five awesome grandchildren live within driving distance of my retirement ocean-view condo in Capitola, Calif. Does it get any better than this? I think not!

My community service has given me the opportunity to provide writing and editing skills to the non-profit groups I am involved with, my church, my Rotary Club and CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). I have served on the boards of the Scotts Valley Rotary Club, Shakespeare Santa Cruz and the Responsible Hospitality Council of Santa Cruz..

I was a Scotts Valley (Santa Cruz, Calif) Woman of the Year and have been listed in “Who’s Who in California,” “Who’s Who in the West” and “Who’s Who in the Media and Publications.” I recently won the 2009 California Writer's Club Writer's Challenge for my essay, Gift from Beyond and a Suite101 Editor's Choice Award for Twenty Year Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Quake.

Other writing credits include: Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, Patch.com, Guideposts, Writing for Dollars, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Good Times, Santa Cruz Small Business Monthly, Pure Inspiration, Affordable Travel Tours, Dining Out for the Times Publishing Group and Wine Talk, the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association newsletter.

As of May, '09 I am the Santa Cruz Wine Examiner and thanks to my credentials with Suite 101, scored a press hour with American Idol finalists and So You Think You Can Dance finalists while performing on their live tours here in San Jose, Calif.

To close out 2009 with a bang, I was thrilled to be a winner in Suite101's Best of the Holidays Writer's Challenge for my story How to Best Cope With Grief During the Holidays. The prize was $101. to spend at will.