Julie Dreyer Wang was born in England, and lived in five countries before the age of 21. She started her writing career at the Montreal Gazette, then moved to New York City and founded Wang Associates Health Communications, which specialized in health and medicine. She also became an adjunct professor of writing at New York University. On the sale of her business, realizing there was more to life than making money, she trained as a landscape designer and designed gardens on the Blue Hill Peninsula of Maine, as the owner of Blue Poppy Garden. Then, when her husband died she first went to Uganda to work with AIDS orphans, then joined the Peace Corps to work in Benin, West Africa. "Africa Opened My Heart" describes her time in Africa and the amazing open-heartedness of the people there who profoundly changed her life. She currently co-owns an organic farm in the north of Benin, and with her partner, Guillaume, runs Bio-Benin, a non-profit that empowers students to earn a living in restaurant cooking, beer-brewing and organic farming. All proceeds of her memoir go to Bio-Benin.
