About Petra Martin

Petra Martin owns Heron Lake Press, which publishes the Mixed Emotions card deck. She also owns the Whidbey Island Writer’s Refuge, which provides writers and other creatives with inspiring and distraction-free places to focus on their work.

Petra’s American father and German mother raised her and her siblings in the United States and in Germany. This bicultural upbringing and later travels led Petra to ponder the similarities and differences between people. During a life-changing trip behind the Iron Curtain, Petra learned that that Sting was right. The Russians really did love their children, too. And Petra never looked at “enemies” the same way again.

Petra graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a bachelor’s degree in English, and completed a year-long certification program in poetry at the University of Washington. She worked as a writer and editor in public relations and the software industry for nearly 15 years. While working as a writer, she experienced several bouts of clinical depression and found herself unable to answer the question, “How do I feel?” She concluded that if she, a wordsmith by trade, found it difficult to put her feelings into words, surely others did, too. So she set about creating the Mixed Emotions card deck.

Petra and her son Adrian live on Whidbey Island, in Washington State.