My Song of Myself

I’m long overdue to start writing again. As a 31 year veteran high school English teacher I’m surrounded by great writing everyday. My classroom shelves are filled with powerful and gorgeous writers. I love books. That’s why I became an English teacher. I also love to read and interact with developing writers. Yes, I do read a lot of terrible writing, but when the light bulb turns on for those few writers who start to get it, it makes all the rubbish I read worthwhile.

When I teach my creative writing classes or run my summer creative writing workshops, I always get the itch to write more. I sometimes share my work with students, but much of what I share is decades old. Now that most of my kids are raised and retirement is visible on the horizon, I am left without excuse.

30 years ago, my college creative writing teacher invited me to submit a short story to a publication and I got my first story published. It was a joyful revelation that there was a writer buried inside of me. This blog is an attempt to come out of my cave into the light again. Like Whitman, “I celebrate myself and sing myself.”

And so I begin…again.