About Sandy:
I cannot remember a time when I didn't read and write. That may say more about my brain and how it functions than it does about how long I've been at this life of mine, but at any rate, my earliest memories all include reading and writing to entertain myself.
I was the girl in high school and college who always read the whole book assigned. I was the girl others came to for help with their book reports and term papers. I loved the whole process of learning. Most of my friends did not.
And while I read voraciously, my writing career didn't really take off until later in life. I was so busy raising a family, teaching school, being a wife, working in the community, there was absolutely no time or energy for writing anything. Writing remained the dream that I hugged to my heart and rarely mentioned except to those closest to me. In fact, most people who thought they knew me would have been completely surprised that I even wanted to write. They didn't know me as the quiet, introvert more comfortable with her books and cats than with the crowds they normally connected me with in our very busy and highly social lives back then.
But all that changed one day on the way home from work. I drove by the local university and the sign to register for classes caught my eye. Before I knew what I was doing, I had steered the car into the drive and parked in the lot in front of the Administrative Building of the University of South Carolina Sumter. The rest, is all a long and wonderful dream. I spent three and half years immersed completely in creative writing and studio arts. It was the most content I had ever been in life. There is no expressable value I can place on that time when I focused on my dream. There were long and trying days and nights, for sure, attempting to balance the needs and schedules of two teens and a husband with my own, but I did it. Somehow I did it. And I never looked back.
One month after completing the degree program, Dial Books for Young Readers (a division of Penguin USA) offered me a contract for my first book of fiction. Since then, I've had amazing good fortune in my publishing life. And while my writing goals have morphed and changed, ebbed and flowed over the years, the dream remains alive and more precious than ever before.
Today, I find myself immersed in the business both as a writer and a publisher. I am now editor in chief for my own imprint, Southern Sass Publishing Alliances, and I love it. I retired from teaching a few years ago, and within eighteen months had started my company and never looked back. I am so grateful for this opportunity and this time.
I still teach workshops. Still write my stories and novels and essays. I use my knowledge and experience to create beautiful books that I am very proud of.. Helping other writers publish is my way of giving back a bit and paying it forward in that I always try to include new writers with each project I take on. In addition to all this, I also work as a freelance editor and have assisted many people on their paths to publishing their first books. My days are filled with writing things. My nights with reading. And I adore my life.
I am so very thankful for it all.
I cannot remember a time when I didn't read and write. That may say more about my brain and how it functions than it does about how long I've been at this life of mine, but at any rate, my earliest memories all include reading and writing to entertain myself.
I was the girl in high school and college who always read the whole book assigned. I was the girl others came to for help with their book reports and term papers. I loved the whole process of learning. Most of my friends did not.
And while I read voraciously, my writing career didn't really take off until later in life. I was so busy raising a family, teaching school, being a wife, working in the community, there was absolutely no time or energy for writing anything. Writing remained the dream that I hugged to my heart and rarely mentioned except to those closest to me. In fact, most people who thought they knew me would have been completely surprised that I even wanted to write. They didn't know me as the quiet, introvert more comfortable with her books and cats than with the crowds they normally connected me with in our very busy and highly social lives back then.
But all that changed one day on the way home from work. I drove by the local university and the sign to register for classes caught my eye. Before I knew what I was doing, I had steered the car into the drive and parked in the lot in front of the Administrative Building of the University of South Carolina Sumter. The rest, is all a long and wonderful dream. I spent three and half years immersed completely in creative writing and studio arts. It was the most content I had ever been in life. There is no expressable value I can place on that time when I focused on my dream. There were long and trying days and nights, for sure, attempting to balance the needs and schedules of two teens and a husband with my own, but I did it. Somehow I did it. And I never looked back.
One month after completing the degree program, Dial Books for Young Readers (a division of Penguin USA) offered me a contract for my first book of fiction. Since then, I've had amazing good fortune in my publishing life. And while my writing goals have morphed and changed, ebbed and flowed over the years, the dream remains alive and more precious than ever before.
Today, I find myself immersed in the business both as a writer and a publisher. I am now editor in chief for my own imprint, Southern Sass Publishing Alliances, and I love it. I retired from teaching a few years ago, and within eighteen months had started my company and never looked back. I am so grateful for this opportunity and this time.
I still teach workshops. Still write my stories and novels and essays. I use my knowledge and experience to create beautiful books that I am very proud of.. Helping other writers publish is my way of giving back a bit and paying it forward in that I always try to include new writers with each project I take on. In addition to all this, I also work as a freelance editor and have assisted many people on their paths to publishing their first books. My days are filled with writing things. My nights with reading. And I adore my life.
I am so very thankful for it all.