Marilyn is a professional oral historian and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She owns a personal history business called Circle of Life Stories, which provides life history recording services for individuals, families, businesses, organizations, and communities.

She is also co-founder of LeaveLight, LLC , a company offering motivational programs for holistic end-of-life planning, and co-author with Jacqueline Janssen of the book Leavelight, a Motivational Guide for Holistic End-Of-Life Planning.

A native of California's Santa Clara Valley, Marilyn has seen vast changes sweep away past beauty. She has a passion for preserving memories of California's history.

In the mid-Seventies, she conducted her first oral histories with Sicilian fishermen on San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

Marilyn graduated with a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley and earned a Master's degree in Education, Instructional Technologies from San Francisco State University.

After a career in information technology and instructional design, she combined her love of language and history to create Circle of Life Stories. She helps people write their family histories and life stories, and she works with communities and organizations to create oral history and community memory projects.

She is certified as a Life Writing facilitator for Turning Memories into Memoirs.

Marilyn has conducted oral histories and trainings for:

She is a former director of the Mill Valley Historical Society, for which she edited and produced its quarterly newsletter.

She is a member of the Association of Personal Historians, the Oral History Association, and the Bay Area Oral Historian's Group.

Marilyn has written biographies of several honorees in the Marin Women's Hall of Fame and is the author of Marin City Memories, a book honoring Marin City elders who migrated from the South during World War II.

She writes both poems and prose pieces and has had her poetry appear in the West Marin Review.