A chemical engineer by profession, she has written poetry since high school. An old soul who prefers quiet corners, she loves nature, long hours of reading, and the works of Austen, Dostoevsky, and Auden—often with Beethoven, Liszt, or Brahms playing in the background. Writing under the pen name Julian Valdez, she was born and raised between the hills and the sea in a remote province in the Philippines.