I majored in English at The College of Saint Rose, in Albany, and after two internships in advertising and public relations, decided to enter the communications field, which is a place where writers can write and make a living too. I got married three months after graduation (my husband Tony and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary next August ), and we moved to Connecticut. I worked at a large advertising/pr firm during the day and got my masters in English at Trinity College nights. When we moved back to the Albany, New York area a few years later, I took a job as a publicist for Russell Sage College in Troy and soon became Director of Communications for the Sage Colleges. Our son, Christopher, was born in 1989. Two years later I took out a small-business loan, left my safe job and founded Books Worth Writing, to develop and publish The Remembering Book, an heirloom-quality tribute to a loved ones life (created after losing my best friend to cancer and wanting to be sure the story of her life was remembered and celebrated). This book-product is now in its 3rd printing, 10,000 copies sold. Around that same time, I began teaching as an adjunct instructor in the English Department at Russell Sage, doing freelance public relations assignments for business and nonprofit clients, and leading public-speaking workshops for women. Our son, Connor, was born in 1992 and then our third son, Dylan, in 1994.
After Dylan was born, I hopped off the career train for a few years to chase after three boys under the age of 5. I wrote a song for each of my sons and sang their special songs to them as bedtime lullabies. I kept a journal (I have on and off since college), wrote poems, and roasts for friends birthdays, planted a perennial garden, a vegetable garden, read tons of books, started a book club, cleared a walking trail in the woods behind our house…and with my three young sons in tow, I returned to my library days.
We devoured books together, morning, noo