I am a sixty-five-year-old mother and grandmother who has worked at many jobs over the years: waitress, parking lot attendant, voiceover actor, newspaper deliverer, typist, babysitter, reading instructor, crossing guard, lunch lady and more. I’ll pretty much do anything for a buck. But the one consistent thing in my life is that I am a writer.

I got my dream job at age twenty-five when the editor of a national newspaper for children owned by the Gannett Company — “Pennywhistle Press” — called me and asked if I wanted to interview for the editorial/writing position. I chose this job over a similar position at the brand-new USA Today newspaper and never regretted it. Who could regret five years of sitting around with like-minded people discussing all the intricacies of our respective childhoods? We chatted a whole lot more than we wrote.

I gave up this job when I moved from Washington, DC to Oregon but I found a similar children’s newspaper to work for there. I had my own kids and continued to freelance wherever I could, in addition to taking on whatever mundane jobs fell my way. I put writing on the back burner for many years, until I happened across a writing class in memoir at my local arts center. There I found my voice again.

No matter that I’m not famous, no matter that I have no giant achievements to claim, I have a lot to say about life. In addition to writing memoir for a number of publications, I am currently in the process of developing a play, a film, and a book (or two). I may be in the last chapter of my life but I hope to make it the best one. I know a good ending when I read it. Or, in this case, write it.