About Vanessa McGrady

I was born on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to a writer father and artist/prima ballerina mother. I spent formative years battling culture shock moving between New York and the extreme bucolic splendor of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. After earning a B.A. from NYU with a major in classical civilization and minors in journalism and art history, which proved excellent for solving crossword puzzles. I started a career in radio and newspapers in Gallup, N.M. that would eventually lead me back to the Pacific Northwest.

Eventually I became freelance travel writer, playwright, producer and commercial/voice-over actor. When I needed a bigger universe, I found one in 2005 – Los Angeles. There I began a career as corporate communicator and social media strategist. My memoir, ROCK NEEDS RIVER, stemmed from a New York Times story about my daughter's birth parents moving in with us temporarily when they lost their housing.

Today we live in Burbank with my husband, Richard, our two dogs, several fish and thousands of plants.