"I'd like to be a writer," I told Father Donahue - I believe that was his name - during my admissions interview. At the time I imagined myself scribbling merrily away in a rose covered cottage, surrounded by my five children playing peacefully together.
"If you want to write, read," Father responded, excellent advice I still follow today.
Freshman year, when our first English papers were returned, C's and D's were sprinkled around the classroom. But I got a B minus! "You write well," Professor Antush noted. "You have a good sense of rhythm and structure." He also said that reading my journal was a delight. I glowed. However, I followed another career path, and became a teacher of high school English. But when it was time to retire I returned to that first ambition, to be a writer, sans the rose covered cottage. That's how my novel, Ms. Murphy's Makeover, came to be published by Black Opal Books. I became a published author many many years after that first interview. Better to be a late bloomer than never to bloom at all!