Marilyn J. Wooley, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment and assessment of law enforcement personnel, firefighters, communications dispatchers, emergency medical personnel, and military. She has served as a volunteer clinician with the West Coast Post-trauma Retreat (part of the First Responders Support Network) since its inception in 2001. She enjoys working with first responders and finds them to be compassionate, motivated, and intellectually curious. She believes that post-traumatic growth is an essential component in the process of recovering from trauma. Dr. Wooley has published articles relating to trauma, post-traumatic stress, and first responders. She is working on a nonfiction manuscript about post-traumatic growth in first responders, and a history about her grandfather's WWII experiences and the liberation of Dachau Prison Camp. Her fictional novel, Jackpot Justice, won the 1999 St. Martin’s Malice Domestic first novel award. Wooley lives in Shasta County in Northern California where she evacuated from the terrifying Carr Fire Tornado. She has also survived SCUBA diving with sharks, white water kayaking, skydiving, losing power on her first solo in a single engine plane, and belly dancing in a biker bar. Her travels have taken her to six continents.