ello! My name is Daveda Lamont and I was born in Los Angeles. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley north of the city and lived there until I graduated from high school. In those years, one could still find traces of the Indians who had once lived in the brush-covered hills and low mountains surrounding the Valley. As a young girl, I used to explore beyond the boundaries of the houses and asphalt driveways and up into the hills looking for remnants of earlier times - stone arrowheads, pieces of rock embedded with seashells, shallow caves with the ceiling black from years of campfire smoke. I would try to imagine what it might have been like then. In addition to the thrill of discovering some small object that had been lost for decades - or much longer - I felt that I could still perceive in the fields, abandoned orchards, and wind and rain-carved sandstone ridges, some intangible essence of those times.

     Love of exploration captured my imagination then and still holds it now - but the boundaries of known territory I now contemplate have stretched far beyond the houses at the edge of the sage-covered hills. Amazingly, I am able to continue to follow these dreams through both of my strongest interests: pursuing Scientology studies and working in the arts (writing, photography, and other arts and crafts).

     For my living, I work as a freelance writer and editor of books and course materials. I frequently edit work concerned with some aspect of the arts -music, singing or filmmaking. At the beginning of 1999 I moved to New York - a big change of environment for an L.A. native. I am finding New York City to be an exciting and fascinating place, full of a palpable energy I had never experienced before. And, in contrast to the city, the rural countryside upstate feels more like my idea of home than any area I’ve lived in.