…and this disjointed life rolls recklessly into my poetry and lands usefully into journalism as background noise caught between the lines.
For five years I wrote a home remodeling column in The Santa Fe New Mexican. My editor gave me free rein and I ran with it. Was totally fun. But things never stay the same. I'm now writing a column called My Little Garden Patch for Santa Fe Greenhouses. One day, after I'd been writing the company's newsletters for a year, we just decided to tuck this bit of homespun into the pile as well.
In The Beginning
Born and raised
along the California coast, I wrote my first play in the
third grade; my first story in the fourth grade; my first poem in seventh
grade. And not many writers these days can claim they wrote their first novel
while stuck in bed with TB. That was during the summer of eighth grade.
In high school I wrote poems for the creative writing magazine; they were always rejected. The features I wrote for the school paper always got re-written. School counselors warned I wasn't college material. I went anyway and, indeed, flunked the English entrance exam for junior college. It didn't stop me, yet a more observant person might have heeded the signs. My first paper in English 101 came back marked "D minus minus minus This is the worst paper I've ever seen." I doggedly continued on, majoring in creative writing and eventually graduating. With honors yet.
…and the details
of life continued into a marriage, into a divorce, into
one job after another.
Moving Along
From the sixth grade on, I had a horse and one day after college landed an assignment from Horse and Horseman. It was published in June 1977, and what a thrill to exchange words for money. So when I settled in Southern Colorado after traveling the West for two months looking for a small town, I took a job on the local newspaper. No one had ever written like I could-or so I was told. And the local feature writer, for years the darling of the land, got pissed and suddenly I got fired. Back to being a waitress.
…and the details of life continued into another marriage, another divorce and more odd jobs than I care to remember.
Now, Here
I've lived in New Mexico since 1979, working in radio, TV, print, and I even taught school for awhile and got a masters degree in reading. After the education system and I parted ways, I went back to journalism and continued writing for local, regional and national publications.
I moved to Pecos, a small town 35 miles east of Santa Fe, by default. I'd hooked up with a man who lived here; one day he decided I wasn't the perfect woman. So I found another place to live. Up a canyon and tucked among pines and cedars, I found a little shack in terrible in need of repair. Over the years I turned this place into something liveable-mostly by myself-and that's what my book is about. Someone Stole My Outhouse is a collection of two years of my home remodeling columns.
I recently finished
writing a memoir, Not a Rock Out of Place, about never noticing the
childhood traumas that plagued me until I began living in a forest. Then daily
walks began unraveling the truth. Now looking for a home, my book is making
the rounds of agents and publishers. (It's a little racy in spots, so the
taker will have to be someone special.)
I live with
two dogs, Lady (the best doggie in the world) and Emma (not the best doggie
in the world), and with the national forest right outside our door, everyday
we follow a maze of trails shared by bears, cougars, coyotes and bobcats.
The place is wild and suits us just fine.
