An Introduction

“What do you do?” 

It seems straightforward enough, yet someone asked me this question recently, and it caught me off guard. I became trapped within stutters. “I...I’m a…Well, right now, I…” 

I’m sure we all can agree that 2020 has been strange, challenging us each in unexpected ways. One side effect of 2020 for me, apparently, is an inability to answer the simplest of questions. 

Eventually, after an agonizing amount of half-finished statements, I settled on “I’m a writer.” I typically avoid this statement because of the inevitable question that follows: “What do you write?” 

I do not fault the person for asking. It’s a valid question, which I too would have asked in their shoes. It seems pretentious to say that “I write nearly anything,” but I do. One day, I’m writing a short story or poem; the next, I’m creating a “Top Ten” list for an educational blog, researching for a report on lone wolves, or editing copy for a fundraising letter. A writer is like a chameleon, always adapting style, tone, and diction to the task at hand. 

In recent years, I’ve worked as an editor, a writer, and a grammar, writing, reading, and all-around humanities instructor. I studied writing and storytelling during my time at West Virginia University where I earned my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing and, before that, at Whitworth University as an English major.

Simply put, I know a lot about words. 

I know the different ways that words can fit together. I know how to make a word count drop from 750 to 350 or how to squeeze compelling copy into 240 characters. I know how to curate a text and excavate the core story from the superfluous. I know where to place a semicolon and when a comma will do. 2020 has been a year of reminding myself who I am and what I do: I’m a writer who knows how to write. Through this blog, I seek to share with you what I know.

Hi, I’m Maggie, and I work with words. Nice to meet you.