I’ve always liked to write. When I was five I could make up songs on the fly – start singing one line and then the next line would come to me, rhyme and all. I’d make up a whole song that way, and I often challenged my friends to contests where we’d sing a song we made up because I could do it and they couldn’t.
The first time I realized I was good at writing was in high school, when my English teacher gave all her 160 students a copy of one of my short stories as a representation of good humor writing.
Even with that success, it never occurred to me to pursue writing as a profession. I wanted to be a veterinarian. Unfortunately, Ezra Brooks and his friend Jack Daniels got in the way of that goal. But when I went back to finish college years later, I majored in English and started writing again. I’ve had a few humor articles published in the Oregonian newspaper.
I started a blog, GentleHumor.com, and went for a year posting every day. Some of those articles are funny, but others you can tell I just wanted to meet my goal for the day. I’m in the process of gathering the best ones into a collection.
Just recently three of my essays were included in two collections of true humor stories, Not Your Mothers Book…on Home Improvement, and Not Your Mother’s Book…On Being a Mom. You can order them from amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or Powell’s Books online.
Here’s photos of the books – I photoshopped the green book into the same picture. Pretty amazing, huh?
