Tarah L. Wolff

Tarah was born on February 24th, 1986 in Park Rapids, Minnesota. She attended public school for one year (kindergarten) before being placed in a Baptist Christian school on the outskirts of town where she put up with wearing dresses (beneath the knee) for several years until she convinced her parents that she would rather be home schooled. She graduated early from home schooling (2001) and became the club manager at her family’s golf course. When she was five years old her family built and began operating Fair Havens Golf Course and she began work there at the age of fifteen.

In 2005 she met a man online from Oklahoma and began a long distance relationship with him. In that time (when she was nineteen) they purchased a home in Durant, Oklahoma, and over the next few years renovated the entire house by themselves. She learned how to run electrical, how to patch a roof, how to drywall, how to do plumbing and countless other manual labors. In this time Tarah finished most of her work on the first book of the Embraced by Darkness series and she regards those years as the most trying and darkest years of her life. Their relationship ended in August 2010 when she finally drove home to Minnesota for the last time.

When Tarah was eleven years old she joined The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc based out of her home town of Park Rapids, Minnesota. With the writers’ group looking at abandonment, along with their literary journal, Tarah and her aunt (Sharon Harris) took the group over entirely. They reinvigorated the monthly writing critique meetings and took entire control of the groups’ book The Talking Stick. Tarah and Sharon do the publishing of the book every year. Tarah does the layout and book design, including the cover, Sharon has the responsibility of the mailing and organizing and they share the editorial commitments. With the help of fellow members they have published sixteen books for The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc over the past decade. The group has grown by leaps and bounds with books sold on the internet from Alaska to Europe.

In 2005 Tarah started a web and print design business called Web Services of Park Rapids. She taught herself CSS and XHTML and enjoys writing the code and the entire design process. She also designs books and all types of print design. The business has been moderately successful for her and she continues it to this day. Though she will be the first to say just how badly she simply wishes to support herself by writing for the rest of her life.

In 2010 Tarah’s family sold Fair Havens Golf Course and her parents divorced. She regards that year as her landmark year of tremendous change. With her parents divorced, the golf course gone (which she had worked at for nearly her entire life) and her own six year long relationship over, she and her mother embraced a new life.