KATHIE OLSEN is a former nonprofit executive, newspaper columnist, adoring grandmother, defender of the planet (and those who inhabit it), and a novice gardener.  She has written dozens of poems and short stories, and one novel (TAKE ME TO MERCY).  She reads all the time -- mostly novels.  She and her husband (of 50 years!) live with their youngest daughter and her family on Martha's Vineyard where they walk the beaches, marvel at the bird-life, and go to sleep to the lullaby of the rotating lights of a nearby lighthouse.