I’m a writer living in Davidson, NC, an idyllic little college town on the shores of sprawling Lake Norman. I cohabit with one lingering grown son, 3 dogs and this man I dearly love most of the time.
I’ve been writing since I was eight years old, about the time my father bought an old typewriter to do some writing himself. Well, I simply could not, to my father’s consternation, leave the thing alone. I eventually ended up breaking it, because I could not keep my hands off it. My fascination for it, I remember, baffled me. He did not thank me for that as you can imagine, which I can’t blame him. I believe he had some literary ambitions of his own.
It wasn’t until after college that I became serious about writing. My early dreams had been shattered by an English Prof. that took great delight in scribbling a giant red “D” on my first composition. Actually it was a D+. Nonetheless, I was humiliated and immediately withdrew from the class. I took my writing back into the closet and it took me a good many years to get my courage back to try another writing course. But I persevered somehow and ended up finally finishing a MFA in Creative Writing.
My bachelor’s degree was in nursing, which I followed up with a master’s in psychiatric nursing. During those years I tried on a lot of hats. Waitress, nurse, head nurse, ER triage nurse, psychotherapist, mechanical drafter–yes, that’s right a mechanical draftswoman for a civil engineering firm. All grist for the mill.
I’ve published short stories in Potomac Review, Confrontation and other journals. I have a collection of short stories written for my MFA thesis and a collection of fictional vignettes written for my master’s thesis in psychiatric nursing. I’m currently finishing my second novel, the first novel being one of those semi-autobiographical things, that for some reason most have to get out of their system. But, hey, there are parts of it that are good . . . really.
As stated elsewhere I’ve been in lots of writing groups along the way, all of them inspiring in one way or another. I’ve found they’re the most reliable way for me to stay accountable. A little healthy competitiveness can go a long way in forcing one to stare down the intimidation of an empty page, to unflinchingly face the flow of imperfect words, sentences, even paragraphs that will inevitably appear. And can happily be fixed.