Look and Listen

Biography

Graduate of Allegheny College, BA in Drama, City College of NY, MS Ed., Rutgers College of Nursing, BS, Rutgers University, MS. I have been an actress, a teacher, a market farmer, and a psychiatric nurse. I've been married and divorced, and have two daughters, both with careers in the arts. For the last 20 years I've had to make my way as a single person, and have discovered a lot about life along the way. I'm also a descendant of the colorful Cole family and I grew up with stories of how my grandfather and great-grandmother were the last hold-outs on Neville Island when the government seized the rich farms to build a munitions factory that never came to be at the time of WWI. The land went to Carnegie Steel instead, the highest bidder when the government auctioned off the land instead of returning it to the farmers. This engendered bitterness and greed in some family members, while freeing others to build other lives. I have written this story entwined with my own in STOLEN FIELDS. I now live and write in Maine, and hope to encourage and help other new authors.

Inspiration

The story of what happened on Neville Island has been part of the fabric of my being for as long as I can remember. If it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here, but it has affected my life. Certain attitudes and ways of thinking were instilled in me by my mother, and I saw the effects of the event on my grandparents and two uncles. In our family we have all been interested in our history, but one cousin did some research and interviewed our uncles, and put together a booklet for the rest of us. I also had stories from my mother. When I was a senior citizen, I took a memoir-writing class at the local university, and, encouraged by my peers, started writing the story of the family, utilizing the earlier work of my cousin, my own memories, and those of my sister and some cousins. It was difficult putting 200 years into one book and I'm sure I ramble a bit. Discoveries were made during the course of the writing that have given new purpose to my future writing and publishing life. I learned that my grandfather and one of my uncles went after some of the young girls in the family, whether due to a flaw inherent in their natures, or to twists of their characters caused by the effects of the loss of their rich farm and the accompanying prestige, will never be known. Whatever the cause, what they did remains in the memories of those girls, leaving scars. In my work as a psychiatric nurse, I have seen many others who have had even worse experiences at the hands of male family members and have come to realize that this hidden problem is more widespread than we would like to believe. I hope that I can write more about this to bring its continued existence as a major problem to a more public awareness. I would like to accomplish this, not by sensationalizing it, but by forcefully reporting people's stories in a way that the reader realizes that this is something that exists even in the best of families. I will also write more about my own life, as a sharing with other older women who are struggling with their own. I tend to take my life in my own hands and the results are sometimes humorous, and sometimes not humorous but interesting, nonetheless. Becoming an author and publisher at age 69 is just one example!