I have always enjoyed writing. As a child I scribbled stories on small rainbow tablets and read them to my friends. In high school I signed up for as many writing classes as I could including a "creative writing" class. Unfortunately, the teacher had a wild red pencil and almost squeezed the joy of writing out of me. Luckily, my master's program connected me with a professor who believed in my writing and encouraged me to keep at it. Writing my thesis, School of Bliss: A School Designed for Students' Happiness, gave me plenty of writing practice. When I went through my National Board of Teaching Certification program, the three hundred page portfolio required more writing than I ever imagined. The day I ripped open my final scores from the assessment I was ecstatic to see that I passed and my writing score was one of my highest. For years I read books on the craft of writing, studied Writer's Digest from cover to cover and wrote entries in journals. I devoured books by Natalie Goldberg, Julia Cameron and Anne Lamott and visualized my life as a writer. I wrote letters to the editor, submitted articles to educational publications and wrote curriculum guides for my elementary school. In 1995 I coauthored and published a book, Miriam Daughter of Finnish Immigrants, a story about my grandparents raising seven children during the Great Depression. For six years I worked as a literacy staff developer and traveled to national training where I was immersed in the craft of writing. In 2008 and 2009 I attended the LaJolla Writers Conference where agents and authors listened as I read sections of my work and liked it!  I returned inspired and motivated. I am currently working on my own memoir, Twenty-Eight Snow Angels: A Widow's Story of Love, Loss and Renewal, about rebuilding my life after the death of my husband. The book is currently in publication and should be on the market in August, 2011. 

National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, Nominated for Minnesota Teacher of the Year, Published Miriam Daughter of Finnish Immigrants (1995) and reprinted it in 2008