Julie Blacklow has been making trouble since the age of five when she faked having polio to get attention. Since growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. , Julie has continued making ‘good trouble’ when it needed to be made. She is an Emmy award-winning journalist, one of the first women in television news in America, who spent four decades using a camera, fortitude, and feistiness to help those without a voice. Throughout her career, she estimates she's interviewed some 30,000 people…every type of human being…from serial killers and rock stars to everyday folks who trusted her with their stories. At age sixty, she switched careers and began managing a horse ranch near her adopted hometown of Seattle. She survived newsrooms, cancer, a lot of bad managers and – after being told she really needed to write a book about her life – she did. Now, in what she calls “the 4th and 5th acts of her life,” she paints every day. She is not quite ready to quit talking.

Penny found career success in broadcasting despite being a happy-go-lucky college cheerleader with big blonde hair.  She's explored remote places all over the world but at heart, remains a simple cowgirl from Nebraska.   And she still finds fart jokes funny.  
Penny loves adventure--rafting the crocodile-infested Zambezi, flying a paraglider, giving polio vaccines in Ethiopia, scuba diving with sharks, and climbing Mt. Rainier.  Twice.    
She's picked up a few credentials along the way--a master's in journalism plus numerous awards, including two Emmys. Hopscotching across the USA, Penny's been a TV news writer, producer, reporter, anchor, documentary producer, talk show host, keynote speaker, emcee, and activist.  Her passions include her family, friends, environmental & social justice issues, animals of every sort, exotic travel, and eating coffee ice cream out of the carton.