Street Cred

I have a few credentials that separate me from a monkey with a typewriter. Number one, my laptop can connect to the interwebs and a typewriter as far as I know cannot.
But I'm also a writer by trade. I've been writing for about 23 years, yet only for cash monies professionally for the past 7.
While working on my B.S. (yep that about sums it up) in Journalism at the grand ol' University of Florida, I turned in an article to The Gainesville Sun on the off chance that they'd want to publish it. It was a hard-hitting news piece about two servers who started some sort of hurricane relief fund or something. You'd think I'd remember the exact details because when it came out in print and I saw my byline in an actual newspaper I nearly passed out. I grabbed roughly a thousand copies and teared up that my name was immortalized in print. Never mind the fact that the next day it would line someone's birdcage. I was a writer.
That was the clip that got me a job with Our Town Magazine. The editor at the time, Pat, asked me to write a travelogue about my trip to Savannah, Ga. as a test assignment. I gave it all I had with all the determination and gusto of a budding journalist. Either the story was good or they were short on talent, because Pat hired me on and gave me my first real writing job. I became a freelance writer for the Tower Publications, Inc. magazines.
Since I moved in 2008 from Florida to Indiana, I cut back on the number stories I write for Tower. But my dear dear editor, Albert, has been so kind as to continue my Our Town column, Naked Salsa.
Once The Hubs got a job in Indiana, I sought a new outlet to showcase my skills with the written word. That's when I found The Republic.
There I freelance for She, Parent, Prime Time, as well as some seasonal magazines.
I love to write, and I hate to write. It is the plight of the writer. Once I have something written and complete it feels as heavenly as a warm bubble bath and being spoon-fed a hot fudge sundae. But to sit down and stare at that blank screen with that smug, impatient little cursor is sometimes enough to make me invent new expletives.
But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'm always looking for new writing outlets. It's the reason I started this darling little blog, so I thank you for indulging and enabling me as a writer.