I became a published author when I was in high school.
The organist at my church, Alan Dann, became involved with a newspaper in Brattleboro, and he urged me to give it a shot. If memory serves, I wrote a piece about armed forces recruitment officers on campus at Brattleboro Union High School.
The reporting followed a typical arc. I checked with all the necessary sources at the school, called up a recruiting station and spoke with an officer (who was only too glad to talk with a 17-year-old male nearing the end of high school) and asked a handful of my peers how they felt about these recruiters photocopying pages of the yearbook. I finished the thing by deadline and sent it in.
Some time later, Alan handed me the printed edition of The Commons with my byline right there for me to see. The feeling was nothing short of electrifying; I still rode the bus to school and my face was covered in acne, but there it was: my writing, printed and available for readers in southern Vermont.
To look at the town of Greensboro on a topical map or road atlas would prove unremarkable. In the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, distance on Route 16 is measured between country stores and gas stations on a great black strip of pavement pointing north. As I drove, the temperature...
You could say my father talked me into it. As long as I can remember, my father has always donated blood. And now, here I am, about to donate a pint of my own. The phrase “like father, like son” comes to mind. I enter the Elks Club at...