Given the middle name “Joy” supposedly because her smiley good nature brought happiness to others just moments after her birth, Tanya has shared her zest for life with others in various ways throughout her life. She’s been a teacher and counselor in a traditional high school in the Midwest as well as in a drop-in school for homeless and runaway adolescents and young adults in the Pacific Northwest. Her love of writing and desire to help people of all ages transcend stress and anxiety, enhance their mental health and wellbeing, and live mindfully led her to the field of professional writing. She’s written over a thousand articles that have appeared in various places online as well as 10 traditionally published nonfiction books for people to use on their journey to what positive psychology calls “a life well-lived.” She has appeared on podcasts and webinars, created an online mental health course for kids, and teaches in-person mindfulness classes. She also delights in writing fiction because people connect through stories of the human experience and have fun along the way.

For her work in nonfiction, Tanya was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award in 2022 by the South Dakota State University College of Education and Human Services, her  graduate school alma mater. Her critically acclaimed novels My Life in a Nutshell  and Twenty-Four Shadows each received the coveted Kirkus Star and were named to the Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2014 and 2016, respectively. Her middle grade/YA novel Losing Elizabeth is used regularly in a high school classroom in Eugene, Oregon and received the Storytellers’ Campfire Most Distinguished Honorary Book Award of 2014 “for Authoring a Book Which Has Made a Significant Difference in the World.”

Outside of writing, Tanya’s joys come from spending time with her family, her cat, and in nature.

Growing Ivy, a novel, forthcoming 2026