Welcome to my website
I’m Diane Mapes, a local writer who grew up picking berries, climbing trees, playing the piano and reading everything from Nancy Drew mysteries to The Godfather on a gorgeously dysfunctional rural strawberry farm about an hour north of Seattle in Skagit Valley, Washington.

At 20, I moved to Seattle and went on to marry, stepmom, start writing, divorce, grow up, travel, date, lose friends, eventually lose parents, get cancer and somehow stumble into the world of science.
And I’ve written about all of it along the way. Feel free to dig into the site or explore these handy links.
* Books on dating and the single life (also, my zombie parody, 50 Shades of Brains)
* My Seattle P-I humor column, Single Shot
* Oddball medical writing (think cutaneous horns and stone babies) and lots of other odds and ends.
If you’re interested in current work, check out my reporting on cancer prevention and research at Fred Hutch.
Want to hire me for some writing? There should be an email address around here somewhere. ; )
Looking for my breast cancer blog? Check out doublewhammied.com.
Wondering why there aren’t any new posts? Me too! No worries, you can also always find me at my #BC Twitter feed, @double_whammied.
Thanks for stopping by and as always, enjoy the ride, including those bumps. Sun goes down for good before you know it. ; )