Your writing, your life.

Is it just me or is change the way we stand still these days?

One day you wake up to find your life making new demands--calling on you and your writing to rise to the occasion.

Maybe you've had a relationship with writing for a long time.  But suddenly, you realize you're ready to leave that old comfortable friendship behind.

Maybe you're ready to look at something you've just penned and think, 

I can't believe I wrote that.  

I think you’ll feel at home here if you've got a reason to write and you want to:

• Find a voice that feels like you,

• Create meaning from the lessons you've learned,

• Tell your story in a way that matters to others,

• Draw on your life and your reading,

• Become more playful with your words,

• Enjoy writing,

• And start loving what you write...

Then I want to welcome you to a small community with a common goal.  

About Vagabond English

I started this site, the book club, the teaching business because, well, I love…

• Getting to know other writers (especially the ones who haven’t figured out they are writers yet!)

• I love hearing about your unique message, your story, your reason to write and helping you put it in words—in a way that connects, a way that feels right.

• Working with people from around the world, who often live their lives in multiple languages, who are often multi-lingual, multi-cultural.

• Being inspired by others who have learned to carve out time for what matters, who are passionate, busy, creative and innovative—who love a good book.

Inspiration you’ll find here…

The Blog: I write to inspire you--(and myself.)  To help you take that journey from book-lover to writer.  To help you find the shortest path to confidence in your voice, your story and your writing.

The Literary Edition: We are a community who creates together. We come together to find and forge the meaning in books and stories. We engage in writing challenges and share our thoughts. The Literary Edition is a way show our steps on the creative journey we take together, to document our progress and to share our work.

I can't tell you how to find more minutes in a day, but I'll remind you to think of what really matters.  

And I want to welcome you to a world of books and a community of readers and writers--like you.

Who am I?

A few things you should know... some of them a bit embarrassing...

I live in France in a very small town...a village really.  In our neighborhood I think there may be more sheep than people.  Now that I've left Southern California, when I get stuck in traffic, it's usually because I'm stuck following a herd of sheep.

In my little family of four, we are all bilingual, bi-cultural... I make up and tell two stories a day with my children--or my co-writers.  We read stacks of books and dinner is often in French and English--all at once.

I started my teaching career 15 years ago as an English and French teacher in San Jose, in California's Silicon Valley. At the time, I had no idea I'd move to France, start my own business…

Before I became a teacher in (2002) I had another life.  I wrote:

• Press-releases for a non-profit dance company...

• Letters to constituents from a US Senator (signed with one of those funky mechanical pens).

• Web copy, emails, and letters for a non-profit health association...

I have kept a journal every morning for nearly 20 years now.  (And I have terrible handwriting.) In fact, one of my college professors invented the "Black Ribbon Award for Worst Handwriting in US Politics Class" just for me. Thank you.

I read very, very slowly.  And I think this slow reading is what gave me the patience to love literature.  To read a story again and again. To tackle literature in French, in Spanish.  

My favorite high school hangout was the Bookworm Bookshop in my hometown of Upland, California.  It's closed now, but  I used to go there to  meet with the other members of The Poetry Club--AKA my other two nerdy friends.  I once met Ray Bradbury there.  He told me he had to send his children's book to nearly 100 publishers before he succeeded.  And that a writer must never, never give up.  I still have a signed copy of Switch on the Night.

I once got kicked out of a reading competition by my own mother. How does that happen? What is a reading competition anyway? In my family it was one book=one dollar.  My mother started the competition as a way to motivate us kids to read…I hope she learned her lesson. She often had to kick me out--of the competition and the house.  "Enough reading, go outside!"  What can I say? Southern California in August simply can't compete with the land of Narnia...

Still reading this? I think it's time for you to chime in.  Get in touch and tell me a little about yourself and your writing challenges.  Or join me at the Vagabond English Book Club.