Carolyn Wood, a life long Oregonian, grew up in southwest Portland and attended Beaverton High School.  In the summer of her freshman year she competed and won a gold medal in swimming at the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome.  She raced nationally and internationally for three more years before attending the University of Oregon (BA English, Phi Beta Kappa).

After graduation in 1967, Carolyn began a thirty-five year career teaching high school English, first at her alma mater, then at Lake Oswego, Glencoe and Wilson high schools.  During that time she earned a Masters of Social Work and an MS Education from Portland State University.  A fellow of the Oregon Writing Project, Carolyn wrote with her students over the years, attended writing workshops and retreats, published a poem here and an essay there and promised herself that someday she’d “pull those writings together and tell her story.”  In 2010 she began to write TOUGH GIRL: An Olympian’s Journey, her first book.