Every writer seems to be on a journey and perhaps like life itself, no journey is exactly the same. My journey began far before I was ever aware that I would become a writer.  I have always had a fondness for language, a propensity to play with words, and a nearly unquenchable desire for knowledge that, among other things lead me to read obsessively.

It was not until my late twenties that I started writing seriously. In fact, I never seriously considered writing for an audience until I was almost thirty. It seems rather than pursuing writing, it pursued me. In fact, it has subsumed me from within.

Academia required writing to be dry and naturally pushed me toward writing non-fiction. However, when I discovered creative writing, namely fiction, this was a spark that ignited a fire. I chose to follow this flame but as a compartment of my life, never as the light of my life. I went through many phases including writing two Master’s theses in this period.

I also worked as a freelance writer, trying many different forms from press releases to advertorials. From there I went on to publish three books, all of which were non-fiction. As rewarding and interesting as these experiences were, I always was drawn back to doing the more creative stuff in my spare time.

This set me up for a rather strange existence because I also worked (and for a large part of this era attended grad school) so I found myself often working 8-12 hour days and then in my free time writing for another few hours at night. The result was working nearly all of my waking hours just about every day.

Although tiring, it did offer some rewards but the minor successes were few and far between.

For those of you who have followed my writing career, you know that a little over a year ago I made a huge change. I went from writing primarily non-fiction, which I have done for most of my life, to pursuing my great passion for fiction.

The transition has been fun and extremely challenging and as part of the process, I started submitting to literary journals for the first time at the beginning of this year.

I am pleased to say that I have finally broken through with my first publication and am honored to be part of the spring issue of The Plentitudes, a new international literary journal based in NYC.

Hats off to this interesting Literary Quarterly! I am delighted to be included and I am grateful to all of you who have supported me on this journey!

Here you can read this piece in its entirety.

Thank you for your interest and support and I would love to hear your reflections whether in the comments section or via email.