Many writers are teachers, speakers, performers of some kind in front of a group. We’re storytellers. Communicators. It’s what we do. My first classroom was subterranean, inside the Cook County Jail. As an undergrad at Illinois Wesleyan, I opted into teaching a GED English course as an independent study. It happened in Chicago through the Department of Corrections. Scary at first, to be honest, but so rewarding for someone nineteen and a sophomore in college. The guards with their iron keys would lock the classroom, leaving me three times a week for an hour-long class with my adult students dressed in orange, all biceps and fingernails. A pivotal jail scene in my second book rose from the experience.
At UT-Dallas you can read my Master’s thesis in their library if you have that kind of desire—“Defining Cummings’ Creative Process: A Manuscript Study of Three Late Poems.” As evidence of my passion for writing, I flew to Boston to research the poet’s archives. It rained all week, and I stayed inside Harvard’s Houghton Library, away from the gloom, surrounded by Cummings’ meticulous aesthetics. The bonus was Dr. Norman Friedman’s publishing a chunk of my thesis in Spring: The Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society. (Did you know Cummings, both poet and painter, saved paper by doodling marginalia of human figures “celebrating life” right next to his typography experiments?)
My first real teaching gig was in the Hill Country of Texas, instructing freshmen. I learned a lot in Killeen. Made good friends. Played Barnette Lloyd there in a community production of Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart. I wrote poetry in the wings. Published a good handful—enough to goad me on. Moved to Dallas. Taught school some more. Wrote short fiction. Wrote a play. Met my life partner. Got a dog. Taught some more, in new school. Started a family.
My partner and I adopted two boys, ages seven and three, from Eastern Europe, and I introduced them to basic English at home while teaching college rhetoric and creative writing at work. Talk about shifting gears—I loved it. At the preparatory high school, I chaired the English Department for a while, steering extraordinary literary festivals that touted keynotes such as Naomi Shihab Nye, Billy Collins, Michael Chabon, and Dave Eggers—truly an honor. http://www.hplitfest.com/scholarship/ I consulted for the College Board and the Educational Testing Service, leading AP workshops and scoring national exams. And thirty years went by.
With our boys through college and our professions behind us, we split our time between Northern Michigan and Southwest Florida where I enjoy photography, watercolor painting, reading, gardening, and looking after Blossom, our rescued Golden Retriever.
