Where I come from....
The facts:
• Grew up in New Jersey in a family of five (two sisters).
• Went to college in Ohio.
• Married at 22 – still married to the same man.
• Two daughters, and a son we lost shortly after his birth.
• Lived in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and the Piedmont of NC.
• Live now in Chapel Hill, NC, where we raised our girls, Olivia and Colette, now in their early 20s.
Writer, Teacher, Coach
If life experience is the best preparation for a writer, I began with some definite advantages. I've been everything from a professional dancer to a licensed massage therapist. I've worked as a community organizer, a
grocery clerk, and an arts administrator. Years back, I even did some ghost-writing for my husband, when he was an in-demand freelance copywriter.
Such a crazy-quilt background would count against me in some professions. I've come to understand it's the perfect preparation for a writer.
Raised in New Jersey, schooled in Ohio, I married a rock musician from the South and settled down to live happily ever after. But surprise! "Happily ever after" isn't bestowed casually...you get it the old-fashioned way, by earning it. About the time I became a young mother, I launched my freelance writing career because we had bills to pay.
I wish I could say it was something I had always planned to do--it wasn't. And I was scared to death. Who was I to write anything? Where should I start? How could I ever get published?
After many false starts, I began to write what I knew: parenting pieces, articles and columns about children, parenting styles, marriage. I didn't feel confident I could succeed, but I put one foot in front of the other, and before long, I had a book, a regular newspaper column, and good magazine contacts.
