Author
Amy Allen holds a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Appalachian State University (1987) designing her degree around her interest in Native American culture, combining Anthropology, Native American Studies and Social Work with an English minor. She went on to study at University of Oklahoma’s Field School of Ethnography, living and working with the Southern Cheyenne.
Amy has been a backpacker for over 28 years. She has built and lived in a debris hut and spent a winter living in a tipi. She was a NC Governor’s School graduate in Voice in 1983, and won the NC Federation of Women’s Clubs Literature Scholarship for her poetry at age 16. Amy has journaled her life experiences since age 12, her enthusiasm for life apparent in an eclectic resume that includes logging with a team of draft horses, baling Christmas trees, tapping maple trees, making rawhide for local drum-makers as well as more conventional work such as technical support, human resources and data analysis. She has brain-tanned buckskins, been a baker in inner city Philadelphia, and picked blueberries in western North Carolina. Amy was a founding member of a small family community wilderness program whose goal was to foster a holistic relationship between today’s families and the outdoor classroom. Her hobbies include organic gardening, yoga, sewing, canning and baking.
Amy lives in Western North Carolina with her husband and Pachinko, the cat. Her latest adventure has been a year of team driving in an 18-wheeler with her husband from February 2011 to July 2012. Their trucking adventures can be found at Open Roads Trucking Blog. Amy is a Yoga Therapist and owner of The Yoga Garden studio. She continues long-distance hiking and has completed the Foothills Trail and parts of the Benton MacKaye Trail.
