Raised in small towns of America’s Midwest, Bee Bloeser grew up curious about places and people beyond her safe and sheltered world. After college, she discovered the same hunger in the son of an American combat veteran and they soon married. Their shared dream fueled a multi-cultural journey of work among the diseased and disabled, from the segregated South to Indian Country, from West Africa to the Middle East. To every new shore, temple and killing field, Bloeser carried her childhood curiosity. Sensitive to social injustice, poverty and violence, she recorded details and asked questions. The answers made this book possible.
Previous versions of two chapters of Vaccines & Bayonets won prizes with the Society of Southwestern Authors and were published in their anthology, The Story Teller. Bloeser was also a finalist in the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards Competition. She is a member of the United Nations Associations and the International Women’s Writing Guild.
After years of international work and travel, and retirement from her stateside career as a speech-language pathologist, Bloeser enjoys writing, public speaking and storytelling, spending time with family, friends and her church and, of course, travel.
