Teri Ann’s will host author Diana Pabst Parsell for a book signing event during March First Friday.
Diana Parsell is a graduate of Marietta High School (1970) and Marietta College (1974).

Diana is the author of an acclaimed biography describing the life and globetrotting travels of 19th-century journalist Eliza Scidmore, who left a major legacy in Washington, D.C., as the visionary and chief champion of efforts to plant Japanese cherry trees along the Potomac.

The book, Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees (Oxford University Press, 2023), has been featured by NBC’s “Today” Show, Wall Street Journal, Japanese TV, National Geographic and other media. A Japanese documentary on Scidmore is now in the works. The book was named a finalist for the 2024 biography award of the Society of Midland Authors, representing writers from 12 states in the Midwest.

Eliza Scidmore was born on the American frontier just before the Civil War and rose from modest beginnings to become one of the most highly accomplished women of her day. At a time when few Americans traveled much beyond their own backyards, she took to the road writing about little-known places. Her works included popular guidebooks on Alaska, Japan, Java, China and India, and hundreds of articles for leading magazines and newspapers.

Marietta native Diana Parsell has been a resident of the Washington, D.C., area for more than 45 years. She and her husband, Bruce, an economist and retired intelligence analyst, lived in the late 1990s in Indonesia during his job posting at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. Their most interesting assignment during that period was escorting the late President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, to Bali in June 1999, before the couple went on to Jakarta to monitor Indonesia’s groundbreaking democratic elections.

Today, Diana and Bruce reside in Falls Church, Va., six miles outside Washington. In an outgrowth of her extensive book research at the Library of Congress, Diana volunteers as a docent for public tours of its historic Jefferson Building.