About me

I have been fascinated with writing since I was tracing letters over dotted lines in workbooks. My mother took me to the library often and consistently indulged me in Scholastic book orders in elementary school. My father used our encyclopedia set to look up answers as well as pointing me there with my questions. They each subscribed to magazines and newspapers, and read books and poems to me upon request.

My aunt dropped my cousins and I off at the library for entertainment, in our hometown in New York. Back at their house, we could often be found laying around reading when we came in from playing.

The written word surrounded me and was held high by many of the adults in my world and I wanted to master what impressed them. I longed to create poems, books, and articles that would inform and entertain.

I have been regifted my own poems over the years, in trickles, from my mother’s archives of my work. From before I could write neatly (that’s still debatable), I have evidence of early attempts at poetry, that are not so bad for my age when, like ee cummings, I eschewed the rules of grammar.

I didn’t really like high school, but English got me through those four years. I enjoyed Shakespeare; Old English was less challenging than everything else from fitting in to learning math formulas.

I put off college for a bit as I thought I’d be stuck with more of the same angsty people, forced to learn together. Man was I wrong. When I got there, and found my people (school newspaper staff, English nerds), it changed. I was excited, challenged and inspired. I didn’t know where my English degree would take me, but I was all about the journey.

Fast forward, I retired early after teaching middle and high school English for 17 years in Florida. I have always wanted to live in a cabin in the woods and write. I am so adept at procrastination that it took a global pandemic to move me to put a plan into action, but here I am, back north, beginning my dream.

P.S. I left out all of the interesting bits for now, family and friend drama, heartache, etcetera. When I get bolder (this is already a big step for me) I’ll be therapeutic and let it all out (ish).