After shooting off my mouth in Father Kernan’s Composition and Speech class (Contempore Speech), I began writing a newspaper column. I was trying to be Wheeling College’s Joe Blundo.
Also wrote short stories about West Virginians or Syrian people. Next came playwriting. I asked my playwriting professor, a devout convert to Catholicism, how to get plays produced. She said “Sleep with producers.”
Instead I accepted a graduate fellowship in English. John Carroll in Cleveland was integrating. I was one of the first eight women. My initial assignment was to teach the football players bonehead English five days a week at 8:00 am. I was one page ahead of them until the day I rushed in late, spoke a paragraph, and realized nothing was coming out of my mouth. We shared a laugh and went for coffee!
Can’t believe that I would eventually write a 335 page novel, Sister of Saidnaya.