Caroline Paul

Caroline Paul (born July 29, 1963, in New York City) is an American writer of fiction and non-fiction. Early years and education Caroline Paul was raised in New York City; Paris, France; and Cornwall, Connecticut. Her father was an investment banker, her mother a social worker. She was educated in journalism and documentary film at Stanford University. Career She volunteered as a journalist at Berkeley public radio station KPFA before (in 1988) joining the San Francisco Fire Department, as one of the first women hired by the department. She worked most of her career on Rescue 2, where she and her crew were responsible for search and rescue in fires. Rescue 2 members were also trained and sent on SCUBA dive searches, rope and rappelling rescues, surf rescues, confined space rescues, all hazardous material calls, and the most severe train and car wrecks. Her first book was the nonfiction memoir Fighting Fire, published in 1998. It was a finalist at the Northern California Book Awards and an alternate selection for the Book of the Month Club. Her second, the 2006 historical novel East Wind, Rain is based on the Niihau Incident, a historical event in which a Japanese pilot crash-landed on the private Hawaiian island of Niihau, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. "When it's over, we don't want to leave," said the New York Times review of the book. Lost Cat, A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology was published in 2013 and illustrated by her partner, artist Wendy MacNaughton. It details Paul and MacNaughton's high-tech search for their cat. The PBS Newshour described the book as "A thoughtful, kind and funny story about the love people can have for their pets and the weird places that this love and accompanying devotion can take them. But it also travels beyond the realm of human-pet relationships, offering commentary on all relationships and the roles of those we love, and sometimes don't love, in our lives."