My Story

In first grade, I came home with my first report card. My Mother was stunned that her son had failed reading! And so began my odyssey as a reader. Mom signed me up for the Easy Reader book club and had me read to her every night as she washed the dishes. Then I began to branch out, reading harder books with more complex stories, I read many books.

Readers often become writers, and that's what happened to me. My sister and I tried to write a newspaper when I was in fourth grade and she was in second. With no sales and the readership of our less enthusiastic parents, it didn't last long, but the desire was there.

In high school I began to dream first of college and film school, but then of being a writer. I wrote over 120 poems for my high school literary magazine, all were accepted, then they had me choose the 15 I liked most to be published.

I wrote a small book of poetry and sold some copies door to door. It was about the writing. I didn't know how to market myself, but I loved the creativity of the written word. Later in life I began writing fiction and went so far as to self publish a science fiction novel. Others are at various stages of completion.

As life lead me into drafting and engineering jobs, I found several opportunities to work as a technical writer and illustrator. But the big break that I found was that I needed content for my stained glass website. That has been a wealth of practice and experience as I've written a monthly newsletter and answered peoples questions as an expert on "I How" and "AllExperts".

In high school, as I mentioned that I'd like to be an author, every single teacher said, "Oh you don't want to do that!" Every single one. No voice of encouragement at all! I sure am lucky to have found a chance to do what I love (writing about stained glass, filming videos about stained glass and helping Jeanne in promoting stained glass)