Caroline Caligiuri originally grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. At age 11, her parents upended her life of normalcy in suburbia and purchased a greenhouse in Genoa City, Wisconsin as a business and a home (yes, they lived in the greenhouse). It was excruciatingly hot in the summer, frigid in the winter, and terrifying in extreme elements. With no easy access to friends early on, Caroline studied music and dabbled in writing, eventually ending up a theater nerd as well. She went to college, studying film and music, and moved back to the Chicagoland area in the late 90s. Caroline continued to pursue writing and in her research for a story, she discovered the Cahokia Mounds; they changed her life. She consulted a Shaman regarding her Native American characters, and through his tutelage, he transformed her way of seeing the world. She eventually moved to St Louis, not knowing a soul, to complete her novel about the Cahokia Mounds. A few years later, after landing a job at WashU, she took non-fiction writing classes from Deborah Taffa, a former Campfire fellow, to hone her anecdotes of the greenhouse for a memoir. After seeing Deborah’s inspiring performance, Caroline knew this was a new type of storytelling that she wanted to learn. As a writer, Caroline is constantly in a process of discovering new tools, and with this Campfire experience, she hopes to find even better ways to tell her stories.