Anna Marie Petrarca Gire owned several businesses in Pittsburgh before moving to Champaign/Urbana Illinois in 1985. While there Ms Gire worked as a House Manager at A Woman’s Place, a domestic violence shelter, in Urbana, IL. In 1987, she changed jobs in the umbrella agency, A Woman’s Fund, and became a Legal Advocate for Rape Crisis Services under the same roof. Ms Gire co-founded the first Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner /Sexual Assault Response Team program in Urbana Illinois and was certified as a Train- the- Trainer, a program that paired up advocates and police officers who trained other police officers/detectives in Illinois.

In March of 2003, Ms. Gire began publishing Women’s Independent Press, a general interest newspaper distributed in Champaign/Urbana Illinois and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She returned to Pittsburgh in August of 2003

In 2005, the newspaper was reinvented into the Women’s Yellow Pages (WYP) of Greater Pittsburgh and she is currently working on the 2015/2016 edition of the WYP. Ms Gire has published the on line Women’s Independent Press newsmagazine since 2009.

In October of 2014, Ms Gire co-hosted The Authors’ Zones’ 1st Annual Awards ceremony for authors in Pittsburgh PA.

Ms Gires’ revised book, Sal: A Tale of Many Feathers is due out in March of 2015.

Ms Gire resides in Pittsburgh with Sal the Bird and is the mom of two adult children, Vincent Schmidt and Leann Schmidt. Vincent and Kristy Schmidt have two daughters, Heidi and Heather Schmidt. Leann is an artist and web developer and has two very happy cats.