Deanna Barnhardt Kawatski was born in Salmon Arm, British Columbia. She met author, George Ryga in 1974 and he beame her mentor. In 1978 she worked as a forestry lookout attendant in Northern B.C. where she met her hermit husband. For the next thirteen years she led the life of a pioneering mother in the wilderness. At the same time she wrote feature articles for magazines such as Mother Earth News, Harrowsmith, Country Journal, and Canadian Gardening. Her life has been the subject of two CBC television documentaries and two books. WILDERNESS MOTHER became a best-selling title about raising a family in the Canadian wilderness, without electricity or running water, over 100 miles from the nearest paved road--this is a life almost unique in the 20th century ("Kawatski tells her absorbing tale in eloquent prose." Publishers Weekly), while CLARA AND ME was a B.C. Book Prize nominee. Deanna has served as a regional representative for the Federation of B.C. Writers and also worked as a writer-in-resident at the Ryga Centre in Summerland. She is featured on the first-ever Literary Map of BC, and is currently at work on a book about the North Shuswap firestorm of 2023.