About Me
I offer people encouragement & practices to deepen their walk with God by making friends with poetry.
Hi, I’m Jody.
Before I began writing online when “Published” meant “in print,” my work appeared in places like our local newspaper and Instructor and People Magazine. My first check for published writing was $75.00. Smile.
I wrote a lot of narrative essays and Letters to the Editor; I can be opinionated when it comes to the subject of children and education. Oh, and how to be a Christian. Still working on that.
I decided to go back to school as a mom when I was 36 and graduated at the age of 40 with a K-8 Teaching degree. I spent over 20 years wrangling early learners from Kindergarten through 6th grade and loved it.
I also survived teaching middle school for two years and lived to tell it. Give me all the six-year-olds. Much of my teaching was informed by what I’ve studied about Learning Styles, which has served me well in my own writing and communicating.
Now that I’m retired from teaching, I consider gardening & weeding as therapy, along with scribbling poetry in the margins of my days. I do not miss the rush for the early morning bell…. but I kinda miss recess. After teaching Elementary School forever, I’m also partial to erasers, which comes in handy when you’re a writer.
Another thing that comes in handy? After focusing my attention on Learning Styles all those years I’ve decided: Concrete, sequential, analytical thinkers are highly overrated, even though I’ve been married to one for fifty years. Give me Abstract Random every time.
Speaking of Random, here are three unrelated things about me:
I have enough pencils in my house to populate two kindergarten classrooms. Sharpening pencils is one of my superpowers, as one can never have too many of those. With erasers, of course. Because writing.
I am a confirmed coffee snob (because, Seattle).
