I'm embarking on a freelance writing career (and thrilled to call myself a "former" secretary as of 12/5/97). Wanna see the first article I was paid to write? It's my web tour of genealogy sites at Folks Online's Helping Hands: (http://www.folksonline.com/folks/hh/tours/geneo.htm). Folks Online is a fun site. If you haven't been there before, check it out!

I also sold two stories to Kentucky Living, the magazine of the rural-electric cooperative in the state. It's the largest circulation magazine in the state. Unfortunately, the stories didn't run as scheduled--but I did get paid!

Last year, I sold two story packages on a trip I took to New Mexico. This is for a new magazine called Via Nova Destination Magazine. It'll be an insert into newspapers nationwide and the editor hopes to begin publishing the print version in April '99. My stories are slated for the August '99 issue. But my contract was payment on acceptance, so at least I don't have to wait that long to get my money. Just want to see a national clip, though, so I was a bit disappointed.

For the past year, I have been a full-time undergraduate student at Eastern Kentucky University--a 41-year-old junior. I'm majoring in journalism, with a minor in Women's Studies. EKU's greatest asset it accessible faculty who are always there when you need them.

In summer 1997 and 1998, I was editor of EKU's student newspaper--The Eastern Progress. The 1997 Back-to Campus issue won second place in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Press Association (KIPA) in spring '98. In fall 1998, I was feature page editor. One of my layouts took first place in the recent KIPA contest. I was thrilled. Working on the paper taught me one thing--working for a newspaper is not my goal in life. I'd rather do consulting (desktop publishing, newsletters, and such) and write magazine articles.

I'm active in Eastern's Take Our Daughters to Work Day program--48 girls last year and we hope for 60 this April.

In my Writing for the Internet course (cross-listed as Women's Studies), I'm working on a web project to help students and faculty internationally keep up with the latest in research concerning romance-genre novels. I plan to upload it for public consumption by May 1999.

My hobbies are cross-stitching (although I don't have much time for it), genealogy (which I squeeze in regardless of time--and have done a lot of this summer), and gardening (just don't mind all those weeds out there).

My favorite genealogy project on the web is the USGenWeb, which started right here in Kentucky with the KyGenWeb project, but now has spread throughout the nation and the WorldGenWeb is well under way. Most recently, it looks as though USGenWeb has merged with Rootsweb to consolidate resources and avoid some needless duplication. Rootsweb began as the Roots-L mailing list in the internet's early days, but has grown to query lists for many counties, surname lists for states, countries, and regions, and much more.

I use Parson's Family Origins 6.0 genealogy program.

Another love is writing and reading romance novels (although there isn't much time for that either right now). Check out some of my favorite Romance Writing/Reading sites:

Come back and visit again! I'll update my page as often as I have time to do so.

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