I see stories all around me every day...
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Hello! My name is Bess. |
When I turned in my first real paper at Davidson College, I thought I was one step closer to my degree in English. That is, until I received it back with more pages of critique than the actual assignment. This was pretty daunting, but great prep for the massive revision process for a middle grade novel I’m currently writing. I graduated from Davidson in 1992 with a B.A. in English and a concentration in Gender Studies.
My interest in women’s issues led me to a job as a battered women and children’s advocate where I worked for almost eight years. My responsibilities there included providing advocacy services to women in the shelter, covering a 24-hour crisis line, creating a dating violence prevention program for teens, and assisting women in court. These tasks required me to really listen to women’s stories – an absolute privilege – and to affirm their experience as the experts of their own situations.
After retiring from the non-profit sector to become a stay-at-home mom, I eventually returned to school and graduated in 2009 from Queens University of Charlotte with a master’s degree in Organizational Communication – or, apparently, a master’s in Writing About Myself. I loved graduate school and how it changed the way I looked at every day life. While many of my peers were writing about their jobs at Bank of America or Duke Energy or Carolinas Healthcare System, I wrote papers about Robert Earl Keen as the persuasive wise fool and Sarah Silverman’s use of the superiority theory of humor; I deconstructed my favorite Mommy Blogger and tried to answer crucial life questions like Will my marriage survive my husband’s love affair with his Blackberry?
Graduate school rekindled a love of writing for me. I started blogging under a pen name, using an abbreviated version of my childhood nickname “Bessie Mae Mucho” (a silly southern take on the famous Spanish song “Bésame Mucho.”) In February 2010 I became a skirtsetter blogger for skirt.com. I once won a writing contest for skirt and my prize was a copy of the book My Formerly Hot Life, which seemed cruelly apropos but still made my day . . . because there’s nothing like putting yourself out there — and then feeling like someone gets you.
I have partnered with The Charlotte Observer, first as a contributor during the 2012 DNC with a daily editorial page column, Left Turn, Right Turn; and then with the blogs Worst Mom Ever, Miracle on Curbstone Street, Mom and Pop, Because Friends, Team Mom, and A Few Good Moms: Can you handle the truth? for MomsCharlotte on Charlotte.com. I have enjoyed writing for neighborhood publications, the women’s civic group DVA Charlotte, and Huffington Post. As the great poet Sharon Olds once penned: Do what you are going to do/ And I will tell about it.
My interest in women’s issues led me to a job as a battered women and children’s advocate where I worked for almost eight years. My responsibilities there included providing advocacy services to women in the shelter, covering a 24-hour crisis line, creating a dating violence prevention program for teens, and assisting women in court. These tasks required me to really listen to women’s stories – an absolute privilege – and to affirm their experience as the experts of their own situations.
After retiring from the non-profit sector to become a stay-at-home mom, I eventually returned to school and graduated in 2009 from Queens University of Charlotte with a master’s degree in Organizational Communication – or, apparently, a master’s in Writing About Myself. I loved graduate school and how it changed the way I looked at every day life. While many of my peers were writing about their jobs at Bank of America or Duke Energy or Carolinas Healthcare System, I wrote papers about Robert Earl Keen as the persuasive wise fool and Sarah Silverman’s use of the superiority theory of humor; I deconstructed my favorite Mommy Blogger and tried to answer crucial life questions like Will my marriage survive my husband’s love affair with his Blackberry?
Graduate school rekindled a love of writing for me. I started blogging under a pen name, using an abbreviated version of my childhood nickname “Bessie Mae Mucho” (a silly southern take on the famous Spanish song “Bésame Mucho.”) In February 2010 I became a skirtsetter blogger for skirt.com. I once won a writing contest for skirt and my prize was a copy of the book My Formerly Hot Life, which seemed cruelly apropos but still made my day . . . because there’s nothing like putting yourself out there — and then feeling like someone gets you.
I have partnered with The Charlotte Observer, first as a contributor during the 2012 DNC with a daily editorial page column, Left Turn, Right Turn; and then with the blogs Worst Mom Ever, Miracle on Curbstone Street, Mom and Pop, Because Friends, Team Mom, and A Few Good Moms: Can you handle the truth? for MomsCharlotte on Charlotte.com. I have enjoyed writing for neighborhood publications, the women’s civic group DVA Charlotte, and Huffington Post. As the great poet Sharon Olds once penned: Do what you are going to do/ And I will tell about it.
