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Writer, speaker, teacher, mom.
A lot of people become writers because they have countless ideas swirling around in their heads waiting to become stories. I’m the opposite: I have words in my head, waiting to take the stories that are already there, buried in people’s lives or tucked into the forgotten corners of history, and turn them into something real, something tangible. Something readable and relatable and necessary.
Writer
Writing is what I do. What I’ve always done really. The silly, fantastical, sappy stories that reveal my childhood truths (Fred, The Flying Monkey comes to mind). The pile of old diaries and journals dating back to 5th or 6th grade are a detailed map of my early life. The letters I wrote, but wisely never sent, pouring my heart out to some boy or other dot my teenage years (I swear, if someone hadn’t already written To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before…). The papers and essays and letters to the editor trace my path to adulthood.
A lot of people become writers because they have ideas swirling around in their heads waiting to become stories. I’m the opposite: I have words in my head, waiting to take the stories that are already there, buried in people’s lives or tucked into the forgotten corners of history, and turn them into something real, something tangible. Something readable and relatable and necessary.
Speaker
I can take all those words—whether from my life or someone else’s, whether for an organization or a candidate or an issue—and speak them into being. I can make people laugh and cry and understand issues and open their wallets. I can speak my own words (I do so love a microphone in my hand) or I can write them for you or someone at your organization to take and make your own.
I’ve done this for electoral campaigns and fundraising campaigns and awareness-raising campaigns; I’ve told my own family’s story for countless childhood cancer organizations and I’ve crafted speeches and testimonials for non-profits from Family Connections of Northeast Ohio to the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland to MedWish International.
Teacher
I’m not a teacher in the traditional sense, at least not anymore. I was for my first seven years out of college, teaching 3rd grade and preschool, 4th grade and middle school, from the city of Compton to the city of Cleveland. And I loved it.
But now I teach on certain topics only, those I choose. My specialty is a course I teach at the Chautauqua Institution each summer, Chile: From Democracy to Dictatorship & Back Again, but I can also talk about parenting a child through cancer treatment and kidney transplantation, living well with Type 1 diabetes, school funding in Ohio, and writing, among other topics.
Mom
It all comes down to this. Right? Being a mom is the driving force behind all I do. When my second son Austin was diagnosed with cancer at ten months old, words become my sanctuary. The words I gave my friends and family as they followed along with his story, and the words they gave me back, full of hope and strength and love. Words grounded me and healed me and propelled me forward when I wasn’t sure how to put one foot in front of the other. Words made the unbearable easier to bear.