The Art of Writing

I believe art is all around us and in us. A person can live artfulluy, with grace and kindness.
A person also can create "art", a creative product. But unless others can share it, that art is lifeless. We make art together - the artist and the audience. 
When my words reach you and make you think or feel, then I am on my way to being an artist, and you are, too!

The Art of Sharing

ART is a way to bring joy, compassion, and a desire to work for change to our world. 

Art of New Friends

Since retiring, I've freelanced for the Citrus County Chronicle and also have focused on my creative writing.

I've had several short plays produced, and I am working on a musical, using songs of a singer-songwriter friend who passed away. I am also collaborating with a friend on a play about grief, using the words of real-life widows and widowers whom we've interviewed, and who talk about their losses and subsequent joys and victories. 
We end the play at a wedding, so there should be a happy ending. 

Worlds in Words

I am also working on a memoir as well as a sequel to my novel.
My novel is available at the Rainbow Springs Art in Dunnellon gallery, as are several pairings of photos with poems. 

MY JOURNEY IN JOURNALISM
I have been a writer since childhood, when I started making up stories to help me understand my world, and to also to bring some help or joy to others. 
As children, my friends and I put on skits that we wrote for the neighborhood moms and kids.
When I was young, I had imaginary friends. Once, when I was in a department store with my mother, getting into an elevator - and to my mom's embarrassment - I screamed that my imaginary friends, Keke and Frick, were getting crushed in the door!
During high school I worked on the school newspaper, helped found an alternative newspaper, and wrote poetry. 

I studied journalism in college, and then worked at newspapers in Canada and across the United States, winding up at the Los Angeles Times.
I didn't make up stories as a journalist. Instead, I wrote about the lives of people who participated in government, education, the arts, and of those who struggled to keep a roof over their head, or dealt with mental or physical ilnesses. 

I kept writing short stories and an unpublished novel while I was a journalist but finally I couldn't resist the tug to more fully focus on creating fictional worlds.
So, I returned to school, first earning a master's degree in film and television from UCLA, and then a master of fine arts in creative writing from the Goddard College. 

I landed a job as a college professor at the California University of Pennsylvania, where I taught journalism, creative writing, literature, and composition classes. 

And I got a novel published, "The Main Ingredient", a tale of women who return to their hometown and open a restaurant, then fight to stay out of prison when suspected of arson after their own restaurant burned down.
It's also a tale of family, friendship, urban renewal, and fried fish!

Please visit our community artist gallery, the Rainbow Springs Art Center.
20826 Walnut St - Dunnellon, FL
(352) 763-4048