: About Me

I have a lot of letters behind my name: a BS in Secondary Education, major in English. I thought someone would call me up and tell me when I was done with school, but since nobody did, I managed to accrue enough credits to flip me over to an additional degree, so the school awarded me a BA in History as well. I studied Communications for a semester and aced it, but when I actually landed a job as a news reporter for a Scripps-Howard paper, I foolishly (?) gave up my studies. When I developed an allergy to newsprint, my degree allowed me to be a technical writer and editor, but I wasn't happy just pushing around other people's words and ideas.

When I got engaged to the best man the world had to offer, my prospective father-in-law, a college dean, suggested rather strongly that I needed to get a Master's degree. I chose the social work field, and did myself proud with an MS degree at Columbia, the folks who invented the field. I did that for almost twenty years. I still have a private practice. I should be rich, but I I do short-term therapy, meaning my clients get well really fast, and I'm a generous soul, who does so much 'pro-bono' work that I usually wind up eating beans.

From somewhere came a yen to be called 'Doctor Lowen'. Nobody sane would trust me anywhere near his/her appendix with my nerves, so I went back to my first love, writing, and received a PhD in Creative Writing. My doctoral thesis turned out to be the creation of a work of American literature around my favorite subject, about which I am most knowledgeable: Me. I am currently shopping my book, and may have found a publisher. Watch this space for progress.

I've done other things as well: I compose music, and sang in first a classical choir and then a rock band for nine years. I was a birthing coach. I gave lectures on every subject from geopolitics to God. I've traveled a substantial part of the globe. I've worked with children, couples, and the very elderly. I've survived breast cancer, physical abuse and social ostracism. I've learned to battle chin hairs in brave silence and to get over trying to convince myself that the gray strands on my pillow must be my husband's. Barring neurophysiology and complex math, I know something about just about everything - and still I manage to keep my humility.

I've recently been asked to take on being a Channel Manager for Helium's Short Story channel. I'm looking forward to reading our members' submissions. 

My passion is ...

writing. Add to that travel, music, and family (not necessarily in that order), and it's a perfect world.

I know too much about ...

suffering children, poverty, and the spiritual and emotional ailments that beset the soul.

My parents always told me ...

I would amount to absolutely nothing, because I couldn't play the piano.

My childhood ambition ...

was to be a writer, but as folks insisted I would never make a living from it I chose instead to be a doctor. However, with lawsuits being what they are and doctors being relegated to the role of drug peddlers, I'm glad I chose to be a writer.

My favorite memory ...

is of the day our son was born; looking into the eyes of an absolutely honest and guileless human being and thinking: "I made that!"

Why I write ...

I have to. I want to. I need to. The same reasons as why I got married to the guy I did.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

America's Next Top Model, Ugly Betty, Aliens in America, and House of Payne are shows I watch every week and catch re-runs of. They uplift, they challenge, they're fun. I listen to just about everything. I excluded rap for a long time, but if one can get beyond the name-calling and profanity there's still beat and message. I'm afraid these days I'm just reading my own manuscripts, over and over and over and...;

My first job ...

was as a summer intern for the Federal Government in D.C. Monica Lewinsky kind of gave summer interns a bad name, but back in the day we were kids who loved our country and aspired to all that stuff in the Constitution. Well, maybe Monica didn't do such a bad job. She's doing handbags now, I think, and doesn't she have a book out? If she doesn't, if she approached an agent he'd snap her right up. Say, maybe she had some real insight into how to launch a literary career.

My best moment ...

was when I looked into my husband's face at our wedding ceremony and realized he really was serious about this 'true love waits' stuff.

My inspiration ...

is lying in bed on a Saturday morning and hearing church bells ring and children playing outside and birds singing and the teapot whistling and realizing that, terrorism and global warming and soaring crime rates, ethnic disparities and atonal music aside, life still isn't so bad and the world is still a pretty good place to be.

Creative Writing > Short Stories Short stories: Guy Fawkes Day

1 of 1

THE UNDERCROFT: Short Story Theirs was not the catholic cause. Guido did not want the job. He would do far better, he thought, as the driver, or the procurer. He would even rather be the one who would inform the World Press tomorrow of what five people—far less than it had taken to launch the Communist Party—had wrought. Leon had gotten the C4; a soldier himself, he had stolen it from the convoy headed for the Armory without their knowledge. One did not need so much; half a pound, he had insisted, all too easy to strap under a coat, would go far in making their point. Their poi...

More..

• Creative Writing Silver
• Social Worker
• Teacher
• Marketplace Approved Writer
• Helium Charter Member