Vivian Mary Carroll (Cherokee Nation) spent many years in regional theater from Alaska to New York, including teaching costuming to students of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, Inc. Clown College. She worked for the Superior Court of Sacramento for twenty-three years and followed a British rock band and a country duo for many years, all the while writing and submitting for publication. She has studied at Idyllwild Arts Summer Writing Program, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, and Writing By Writers Boulder Generative Workshop. She received her MFA at the age of seventy-two from the Institute of American Indian Arts.