As a young girl, I dreamed of being a writer, but aside from school assignments and English papers in college, did very little writing. I seriously took up writing a couple of years ago in my retirement from teaching (30+ years). I started taking writing classes — fiction, memoir, poetry. It was like being inspired as a young girl hanging on my teacher’s every word. I’m in a writing group now which grew out of a class. These women have become my cherished friends. And I share writing with one of my oldest friends — we read to each other over the phone — and also with my son. He’s a good writer and has really good instincts, one being “Pare it down.” There’s no shortage of things to write about — my childhood, my family, teaching experiences, brief encounters on ordinary days, a few moments in the yard. And my granddaughter! She is my muse; five, and endlessly fascinating. Writing helps me make sense of my life and take notice of everyday experiences. It has gotten me through some tough times and widened my circle of friends. There is no end to the benefits of it. I like the challenges and structure of a prompt or a contest, pointing me in directions I hadn’t thought of. My goal is just to keep going, keep learning, keep practicing.

Aside from writing, I love reading — mostly modern fiction, but sometimes I go back to the classics. I love Jhumpa Lahiri and Alice McDermott. I am a fan of mysteries, thrillers, and detective stories, and mingle them in with the other types of reading that I do. I like detective series on TV as well. I’m a binge-watcher!
And I love slice-of -life things like “Eighth Grade” and “Moonlight.” I guess it all comes back to characters and stories and memory and how we make sense of the world.

Country: United States
City: Sanford
State: North Carolina