Angele McQuade.com the online home of author angele mcquade

Maybe some day you'll be able to read volumes one, two and three of Angele's highly anticipated memoirs, but for now perhaps you'll be content with this:

Angele was born and raised in sunny Southern California, a climate not exactly suited to her decidedly, um, pale complexion. (Her many dermatologists over the years concur.) After graduating from the University of California, Irvine (Go, Anteaters!) with a degree in English and a minor in Women's Studies, she and her surfer boy - er, captivating new husband - departed the sand and surf for the wintry glory that is Madison, Wisconsin.

They spent similarly chilly yet charming years in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Ithaca, New York until the entire McQuade clan (by now four in number) shoveled their last sidewalks and hit the road for warmer climes. Now badgers have been replaced by alligators, hemlocks by Spanish moss-draped live oaks, and omnipresent cloud cover by enormous, blindingly blue skies.

Though you'll rarely find Angele without a big hat and plenty of sunscreen at hand, she has to admit there's something mighty nice about taking a leisurely canoe ride down a local river the first week of January. She'd even wear short sleeves if only those pesky mosquitoes weren't such a nuisance.

During her shivery Wisconsin years, Angele worked for the syndicated public radio show Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know? (her very favorite job other than her current one as writer). While living in Cambridge, she wrote for Investorama.com, producing among other subjects an almost unimaginable number of articles about insurance. Ask her about kidnap and ransom insurance if you're ever curious.

Angele has also published two books about investing (including Investment Clubs for Dummies, one of Barron's "Best Investing Books of 2002") and written over one hundred articles as a columnist for BetterInvesting magazine. She's been interviewed on public radio (twice now, and aiming for more) and by numerous publications including Consumer Reports, the Chicago Tribune and CBS Marketwatch.

While personal finance and public radio will always be great passions, Angele's true writing love remains middle grade and young adult novels. She's currently pursuing publication of her first middle grade novel and writing her second YA. She is an active member of the Authors Guild, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the Romance Writers of America (RWA).

When she's not writing novels for young people (and those monthly magazine columns for investors), Angele amuses herself with most things domestic (especially creating delicious meals from local organic edibles) and many things crafty or creative (among them handwritten letters, hand-made bookmarks, hand-carved rubber stamps and hand-bound books). An abundance of tricolored herons, snowy egrets, limpkins, ibises and other amazing birds practically in her own backyard has inspired Angele's increasing interest in both bird watching and photography.

Angele's first job in high school was as a hostess at Cattleman's Ranch restaurant. Her original manager encouraged her to wear short skirts and smile widely at the male customers when escorting them to their tables for bargain-priced filet mignon and garlic chicken. He was fired shortly after and replaced by a chain-smoking woman named Faye.

While working at Cattleman's, Angele learned that "mas papas, por favor" was the best way to ask that more baked potatoes be brought out from the kitchen. She also learned that her favorite waitress Rhonda was pregnant with her favorite busboy Roberto's child.

Angele has yet to set foot in 8* of the 50 states. Mississippi, Vermont, West Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina are her latest conquests, with the whole of the Pacific Northwest next in line. Onward to 50!

*States still on the "not yet visited" list: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington. Invitations always welcomed, of course...