This biography is available to newsletter editors to help promote an upcoming lecture by Marni to their society.

Marni Turkel (pronounced tur KELL) is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and has been growing orchids since 1980. She has been an active member of the San Francisco Orchid Society since 1982. She grows in three greenhouses in Santa Rosa with approximately 1000 sq ft of growing space. Her main interest is in cool-growing miniature species but plenty of larger plants have crept into the collection as well. Marni has been a contributor to Orchids magazine with her series called 'Well Worth the Space' and 'Give It a Rest'. Her articles have been translated into Dutch, German, Portuguese and Swedish for international publication. Photographs of her plants have been feature in articles noted orchid publications including Orchids Magazine, Orchid Digest, Richardiana, The Orchid Review, and The Australian Orchid Review.

In the last few years, Marni has expanded her work with orchids to include propagation of orchids from seed and has set up a flasking lab of her own to take the process from start to finish and sell flasks of many of the orchids species in her collection. She has been a working potter for over 43 years but will be retiring from ceramics soon to pursue orchids full-time.