Who am I?

My Publication List

• Fiction writer
• Nonfiction writer
• Mother
• Dog trainer
• Dog owner
• Gardener
• Cheesemaker
• Writing Teacher
• Web Editor

Boredom was easy to avoid. I simply carried a book everywhere. I read on the bus, in the car, in class when the teacher was boring, outside the principal’s office while waiting for punishment for reading in class, under the covers by flashlight, instead of doing my chores…

You get the drift.

I finished the grade school library by the time I was fourth grade and waited impatiently for the weekly visit from the Bookmobile. I remember that glue-fabric-silverfish smell of the stacked books in the hot, stuffy space. No air conditioning! We were lucky to have it at all, in our small town of Allison Park, outside of Pittsburgh. When I didn’t have a book, when I had to go along on a shopping trip, or was supposed to be listening to someone say something boring, I simply made up the stories in my head. Those ongoing adventures were a slowly evolving yardstick to my maturity, I suppose. Or lack, thereof! But they were fun and entertaining.

When I was thirteen, spending summer on Nags Head, North Carolina with my double cousins (my mother’s brother and father’s sister married…not quite incestuous, be we all DO look alike), we had to have a two hour siesta every noontime. That only chafed until I discovered the box of Astounding and Galaxy magazines under the bed in my room. From then on, ‘nap times’ were never an issue! And I spent a lot of the warm nights reading. That’s another scent that will haunt me forever – the smell of sea air, musty paper, and the cotton blanket pulled over my head. (I was never without my flashlight!) That was it for me. I had found my genre.

Of course, what I also discovered was the absolute dearth of female protagonists in the SF I read. So I was simply forced to start retelling those stories to myself…my way! With women in them, and not just guys! James Tiptree was a bright new voice, thanks’ be. And Ursula, and Vonda McIntyre. Women SF writers! Strong female characters, hooray. Tragically, it wasn’t until after James Tiptree’s death, that I discovered my Aunt Frances’s long time, ‘my friend, Alice’ was actually Alice Sheldon, aka James Tiptree! I had met her, but it never occurred to my aunt that I read SF, so she never mentioned that her friend Alice wrote it. Oh well. One of life’s little near misses.

It really started in 1988 when I sent my very first written down, good enough to send out, SF story to Stan Schmidt at Analog. I guess he read it to the end. He sent me back a short note telling me that my ending was AWFUL! (which it was) and stories needed ends, darnit! Well, if I ever figure out how to end that story…. But it did get me admitted to Clarion West. I coaxed a good friend to take my six and nine year old sons while I was gone and I went. It sure worked for me. I made friends, I met writers and editors like Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois, and Scott Card, Joan Vinge, and Lizzie Lynn. I worked my butt off, writing 60,000 words of story by the end of the six weeks. And by the last day, there was no turning back. I have kept in touch with several of those Clarion companions over the years.

Gardner Dozois, bless him, supported me from the first. He bought Second Chance’ at the workshop and thereafter bought a LOT of stories from me. Many, many stories. I owe him a lot of thanks for giving me support when I needed it and a good chiding when I needed that.

Oh yes, and all those other things? Well, as I said, I hate boredom. I’ve worked hard at avoiding that state of being all my life. I got into cheesemaking when I had dairy goats and needed to do something with those rivers of milk. There were no books on how to do it, so I figured it out for myself, using commercial cheesemaking recipes and ancient out of print homesteading books. Artisan cheese was born and cultures and rennets became readily available. I was a commercial cheesemaker for a couple of years, setting up cheese production for a small dairy: Talk Talk Dairy, in Oregon. I made Jack, Feta, and Neufchatel cheeses in the little plant that also served as the bottling facility for the milk. It was fun! I like draining 500 gallons of warm whey onto the concrete floor!

Ricotta Cheese Recipe

As to dog training, I like dogs that are as big as I am or bigger. I started with English Mastiff, who weigh around 200 lb. or more. If you are going to have those breeds, you had better train them! Currently I have Rottweilers, all titled obedience and tracking dogs. We compete for obedience titles at dog shows, and I am in the process of becoming an AKC obedience judge. I teach puppy-training classes for Columbia Dog Training and help the Rottweiler owners who show up at Columbia for training with their dogs.

What did I leave out? Gardening. Well, a writer’s income, unless you’re Stephen King or Nora Roberts, is – shall we say – not great. If I wanted to eat well, I decided I’d better grow my own. I have 2 ½ acres that supplies all my fruit, all my vegetables, and the wood I use to heat my house. When the words aren’t flowing there is always wood to split, beds to weed, or chickens to feed. Before you know it, I’m itching to get back to the computer.

I’m also the Web Editor for Long Ridge Writers Group as well as an instructor for their by-mail and online students. It’s an excellent writing course and I thoroughly enjoy my students and celebrate with them when they publish.

The website is open to the public, no strings attached, and is a great resource for aspiring writers at all stages. Feel free to visit it. Drop in and say hi. I’m in the chat rooms nearly every day.

www.longridgewritersgroup.com

Mostly, I write. That is the center of my life.

So here I am, many many years after those hot Nag’s Head afternoons with the smell of sea and musty pages still in my nostrils at times, doing just what struck me like a flash of lightning that summer as I read those pulp magazines. I want to do this.