J'Espere

                My friend died. Those are words I struggle to say. I haven’t lost a friend in a long time, and when I found out on Thursday night what happened, the words stuck in my throat. When I checked my email and saw there was one from a sorority sister I hadn’t heard from in a long time, titled, “Prayers for the Sanford family…” I wasn’t expecting to read that Courtney had died that morning. And at first, it just didn’t make sense. A FB post from her had popped up in my feed that day. “The happy song makes me HAPPY.” It was posted one minute before she crossed the I-85 Business median and collided head on with a truck. The wreck blocked half of the highway for 3 hours. I saw the wreckage. I went online and looked at the photographs even though they say you shouldn’t do that. And she wasn’t in any of them. So, see, no one was driving the car therefore she wasn’t dead. I raced downstairs to show my husband, and say, “Could someone have ...

Today a bill will hit the floor aimed at forcing transparency in companies when it comes to salaries. Currently, according to Working Mother  magazine, 68% of married women work outside the home and 75% of unmarried, separated or divorced women do. That's a lot of women working to bring home a paycheck and contribute to their family's security and well-being.  And it's been going on for a long time. I've mentioned this before but my grandmother worked outside the home as a nurse, even after she was married and had kids. My mom worked a good part of my childhood. And I am working. Before I start blasting the people who feel it's okay to pay someone less based solely on gender or race, I wanted to say why I'm working, and maybe why others are working too. There is the financial reasons of course, but since I'm in education I'm definitely not the breadwinner (cue irony). Then there is the idea of a career. I was raised to believe that I should have a care...

So in my fantasy world I'm a published author. If you've known me for a long time, you know that occasionally I work on different writing projects, but you also know that clearly I'm not published. Otherwise I would be screaming about it at the top of my lungs.  But while I'm waiting for my moment, the next best part in my fantasy world is getting to hobknob with other authors. Which brings me to the NC Literary Festival. First of all, you need to understand that North Carolina is a prolific writing state. We have the most amazing collection of authors and illustrators ever. Really. We have every kind of author from Eric Carle to Nicholas Sparks, Jill McCorkle, Allan Gurganus, Reynolds Price.... you need a genre? We have an author. Maybe it's because of the landscape and ability to move from the mountains to the beach in a day. Maybe it's because of the huge number of teeny tiny towns, or maybe it's in the water. Whatever it is, people in NC want to write....