Joan Del Monte, a resident of the Venice canals in southern California, is a multi-faceted woman. Writer, teacher, lecturer, radio commentator and successful entrepreneur, Del Monte has owned an antique store, an art gallery and a real estate company as well as periodically living abroad. She draws on this rich tapestry of experience in many of her novels. Del Monte’s summer home in the northern California redwoods provides a backdrop for Plonk Goes the Weasel where the intrusion of Hollywood energizes the normally discordant logging and academic interests in the community.