Dorothy Staley left the Arctic, but it never left her. After college, she taught English in Anchorage, Alaska. Later, she followed her husband to Barrow, where she became a science writer at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory. She left Alaska after two decades, to become a technical writer in Washington, D.C. Once retired, she rediscovered her fiction voice. Although her life as wife, mother and writer took her from Alaska, to Washington, D.C., and finally to Florida, she continued to express her love for the Arctic and its people through her poetry, short stories and her debut novel Bear Woman Rising.