zenWriter42

Author bio:

I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2005 and 2006 and completed the challenge both times. In 2006, I returned to school after 30 years, completed my bachelor’s degree in 2008 and promptly entered grad school. The 2005 draft served as the basis for my thesis manuscript for an MA in creative writing, which I completed in 2010. After much editing and rewriting, I am now shopping NaNo novel ’06 to agents, hoping to find a publisher.

NaNoWriMo showed me that I could, in fact, complete a book-length manuscript, something I had not been able to do up to that point. It gave me the confidence to complete my education and move on to this level when I can actually look (realistically) at publication. The boost helped me take on a project for a museum fundraiser as well: in 2008-09, I wrote a 20,000 word non-fiction history book that was published in December 2009, Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History, which was awarded the 2010 Outstanding Achievement Award in History Outreach by the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums (OAHSM). Most recently I contributed a personal essay to Sugati Publication’s 2011 women’s anthology The Moment I Knew: Reflection from Women on Life’s Defining Moments.

During the past two summers, I have attended the Antioch Writers Workshop, a week-long intensive held in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 2010, I was honored to speak before the one hundred-plus attendees from all over the United States about Historic Warren County on the conference’s First Book panel.

I’m fudging a bit and using this year’s NaNo to jump-start a stalled WIP. NaNo’s been good to me in the past and I’m hoping for more of the same this year.