My Life In Writing
The Budding Wordsmith, age 7
Everyone has a story. As a copywriter my usual focus is telling the world yours or your company’s. But here – briefly — is the story of how I came to be writing, well, this.
My fascination with words showed itself early. Back in the second grade during roll call one morning in mid-Advent, instead of answering “Present,” I remember saying, “Waiting for presents!” That seemed to me at the time the height of sophisticated – not to mention, seasonal — word play. My seven-year-old friends giggled appreciatively. Sister Delphine smiled benevolently. And for this budding wordsmith, there was no turning back.
The power of words — to delight, to connect, to move people to feel and respond — hit me then and there like the snowballs thrown most winter days by Danny Lewandowski at recess.
From a Southside-of-Milwaukee childhood filled with Little Golden Books and backyard theater productions co-authored with the kids across the street, I moved on to high school. Aced English all four years – journalism class, too – and saw my first byline on the pages of the school newspaper. In college, in between the novels of Dickens and the essays of Emerson, peace marches, and student teaching, I wrote stories for the alumni magazine. And a couple years later, I typed the final footnote to my Masters thesis.
From There to Here
Yet I didn’t decide to become a “real writer” until after I’d been teaching high-school English and composition for four years.
Advertising offered a creative way to begin doing that and still pay the rent. Much of what I know about the field I’ve learned working alongside talented creative directors and designers, savvy account and marketing executives, and with a wide variety of clients. Within three years I moved up from an entry-level copywriting position to Creative Director at a major San Diego agency.
Big office. Lots of windows. Then I did what some might think unthinkable: I decided to go freelance.
Before and since, I’ve approached every ad project that has come my way as if my own name would appear on it. But I also began to branch out and do the kind of writing that comes with real bylines: op-ed pieces, features, and for a local parenting magazine, a long-running slice-of-family-life humor column my husband, daughter, and son accepted as the fate of those who share a breakfast nook with a writer of personal narratives.
Once Upon a PulitzerThe Pulitzer Prize has, to date, eluded me, although in 2007 I did come close, when the Christian Science Monitor nominated my essays for that honor. Oprah, alas, still hasn’t called. But in the meantime, I stay busy writing for a variety of clients and publications. Places my work has appeared include: Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Child, Westways, Mountain Living, Dog Fancy, San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. I’ve also recorded my essays on National Public Radio and written a couple books, as well. |
War and WritingIn 2002 my son joined the Army and served two deployments in Iraq totaling twenty-seven months. During that time, I chronicled the war and my family’s experience of it in a series that was syndicated nationally and internationally. Those essays served as the starting point for my most recent book: Minefields of the Heart: A Mother’s Stories of a Son at War (Potomac Books, June, 2010). Writing about the war led me to lead writing workshops for war veterans at the San Diego Vet Center on Truxton Road in Point Loma, initially through a grant from the Kenneth A. Picerne Foundation. And that led to the creation of The Warriors Wall –http://warriorswall.com/about/ — a website for veterans to write and share their stories. |
Everyone Has a Story
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms,” the poet Muriel Rukeyser once said. You’ve just read mine. Now I’d love to hear yours. Drop me a note and tell me about yourself and your business or ask about pricing for your next project.