About The Dream Rider Author Rosemary Carstens

About the Author

Rosemary Carstens grew up in southern California in a small farming community, leaving it behind at the age of seventeen to search for work, education, and adventure. She has found all three in abundance.

Her employment has run the gamut from telephone operator to real estate developer, from land agent for an expedition company to freelance writer of industrial video scripts, marketing materials, and corporate topics for various businesses. Through it all, three passions have remained strong: the need to see and experience the world and its people, to try new things, and to record it all in essay and journal.

Ms. Carstens has traveled most of the remote areas of the globe, including the Arctic, the Antarctic, Borneo, New Guinea, much of Africa, and Central and South America. She traveled extensively in China soon after it opened up to the West in the early 1980's, and spent a month in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam before the embargo was lifted. Her modes of transportation have included plane, train, ship, canoe, zodiac, jeep, skidoo, dog, horse, foot, and camel.

She has flown a variety of aircraft, including fixed wing, helicopter, sail plane, hang glider, ultralite, and hot air balloon. A certified scuba diver, Carstens has explored underwater areas in the Caribbean, the Hawaiian Islands, Micronesia, and offshore at more isolated locations. Describing it here, it sounds like she is a born explorer and athlete, but her pursuits have always been a struggle and a challenge as she strove to live the daydreams that have danced constantly in her head since childhood.

Physical fitness and athletic ability are not natural attributes for Carstens. More natural to her is her voracious appetite for books, her love and appreciation of art and dance, her pursuit of educational goals and business acumen. Each time she has taken on a new sport her physical progress has been painstakingly slow and she has struggled with fears of injury, death, and failure. Where others jump into new sports with grace and agility, take on new adventures without a backward glance, Rosemary's accomplishments were hard won-but her persistence and determination moved her along a baby step at a time, toward her goals. She acknowledges not being the best at most of the things she tries-but she has learned she can eventually gain sufficient skill to enjoy a measure of accomplishment.

Continuing to take on new challenges in her fifties has led Carstens to believe that others can include many more adventures in their daily lives than they have ever imagined. Learning one step at a time, persisting in the face of failure or ridicule, keeping one's eye on the goal while taking practical safety precautions, and maintaining a sense of humor about oneself-this is a path that anyone can walk.

Carstens has a B.A. in Third World Studies from the University of California at San Diego, and is currently working on a Masters in Latin American Studies through the University of New Mexico. Dream Rider is her first book. She resides in Longmont, Colorado, with her latest ride, The Road Goddess.

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