Biosketch

Maureen A. Sherbondy

When I was eight I began writing poetry and short stories. Like most people who write early on, I was also an avid reader, turning pages late at night, while everyone else in the house slept. I devoured books by Judy Blume, E.B. White, anything I could get my hands on. John Ciardi, the poet, lived in my hometown, and I got a secret kick out of this -- a famous poet lived near me. My favorite anthology of poetry was Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle; John Ciardi had two poems in there.

When I was eight, my Opa (grandfather) paid me five dollars to write a poetry book. It was called From Ground to Sky. After he died, I was at his old, but stately, house in upstate New York for the funeral. Tucked inside his dresser drawer I found that book; he'd kept it all those years.

My first success came at thirteen when I had a piece of work accepted by Dynamite! The magazine paid me five dollars -- more money than I received years later when my poems began appearing in literary magazines. When I was fifteen I won an essay contest in my hometown, Metuchen, New Jersey. With the twenty-five dollar gift certificate I purchased a rock tumbling machine to polish found stones. I still love rocks and gems -- in another life I'd have been a gemologist.

At Rutgers University I studied psychology -- avoiding a major in English -- fearing I would never be good enough as a writer to succeed. However, I did take electives in playwrighting and creative writing whenever I could.

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After college, I worked with the elderly and then sold workers' compensation insurance. When my second child was born, I stopped working for a paycheck so that I could stay home with my two sons. I then went on to bear a third son (three in less than three years).

Deciding that becoming the fastest diaper changer in the Northeast wasn't my true calling in life, I began writing again in order to charge my sleep deprived zombie brain.

So, with a newborn, a one-year-old and a two-year-old, I set pen to page during stolen slivers of time, writing poetry and short fiction. After getting my first short story published in Pheobe (SUNY, Oneonta), I moved fiction writing aside to focus on poetry. There just weren't enough hours in the day to manage poetry, three boys and fiction.

In thirteen years I have managed to: place over one hundred poems in literary journals, get my chapbook, After the Fairy Tale, accepted for publication, write a novella, have several short stories published, accumulate many wonderful awards, and meet a community of incredible writers.

If you are looking for writing tips there's no magic here, just this -- if you want to succeed in writing:

Write
Write
Take classes taught by great writers
Read literary journals and books
Don't give up
Write some more
Learn how to revise your own work
Join a writer's group