Occupation: I’m a writer, and retired from The Newtown Bee in 2006. I worked at the Brookfield Journal before that, and prior to that I taught English to middle schoolers at private schools in Maryland and New Haven.

Family: I’ve been married to John for 51 years. We have three children. Sarah is married to Boris, and they live in Montana — way too far. John III is married to Eleni Dimopoulos, and they live in Boston. They have two children, Nicholas, 4, and Athena, 1. Bill is married to Christine. They live in Trumbull. They have one little girl, Cassidy, who is 1 year old. So I spend a lot of time playing with the grandchildren, when I can.

Pets: We have Molly, our dear springer spaniel. She came from a wonderful litter of seven pups we bred in 2001. It was nonstop fun and chaos, and I lost ten pounds in the process. She’s 14½ years old and my dear old girl. But she’s in good shape. We walk a lot, and try to keep her moving.

How long have you lived in Newtown? We moved to Newtown in 2002, after traveling around a lot. We had eight moves in our married life. We did live in Brookfield since 1985, and our kids went through schools there. I finally wanted to live in Newtown, where my mother, the late Mary Mitchell, was living.

What do you like to do in your free time? I’m a member of the Garden Club of Newtown, and have written essays for their newsletter. I’m also a member of the Horticultural Club. John and I do a lot of traveling and a lot of gardening. We have a house on Cape Cod and a house here, and gardens at both places. So I haul hoses around here, then go to The Cape and haul around hoses there. It keeps me in shape. I love hiking and bird watching and being outside. Reading is probably the biggest thing for me. I facilitate the nonfiction book club at the library. It’s a very good group of people who are willing to read and discuss all kinds of different topics. It’s men and women, and I like that about the group. We learn so much from each other.

What are you currently reading? We just finished Factory Man by Beth Macy, about the globalization of the furniture industry. We’re going to read The Wright Brothers by David McCullough next, and also Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick. I recommend The Lost City of Z by David Grann, for pure adventure. It’s about exploration in the Amazon rain forest.

Do you have a favorite travel destination? We mostly go to Chatham, on the Cape, in the summers. We’re going to have an adventure this summer, a small group on a boat going through the Panama Canal. John is an engineer and is excited about the engineering aspects of the canal. I’m excited about getting off the boat and into birding in the rain forests of Costa Rica.

What is the best thing about Newtown? The friendliness of the people and the value the town places in its schools, its history, and its natural beauty. Fairfield Hills is our treasure. I love the new perimeter walking trail, the view from the High Meadow open space, and the whole idea of the Victory Garden. I hope we can manage future development so these peaceful places will remain. It’s really the land, in a very real way. The farming culture here still comes through for me, it’s still thriving. There are still people who value taking care of the land and not every town has done that. And our library is a great asset.

What has been the greatest influence in your life? The greatest influence in my life was growing up in Minnesota, and having free time, unsupervised, to just wander the fields and just be in nature. It led me to the kind of writing I like to do, nature writing. I feel fewer and fewer children have this gift of nature, without it being so organized.

If you could spend time with someone from the past, who would you choose? My grandmother, who was born in 1890, and lived through two World Wars. She died before I understood enough to ask the kinds of questions I’d have today.

Do you have a guilty pleasure? It’s got to be Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream with any kind of cake. And I love all the British comedies on PBS.