Member-only story
About Me — Medium Writer Deborah Camp
Retired business owner, college prof, adventurer, cat lover, and all around goof-ball
Early years
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing. Grade-school summers in Memphis were spent inside the local library, where I lingered for hours, reading one book after the other and cooling myself with a cardboard church fan.
At home, I pounded out stories on an ancient boat anchor of a Smith Corona typewriter, sitting at the same cherry dining room table I have today.
My fingers were always stained by the deep purple inked ribbons.
I remember with clarity where I was and what I was doing when I began to figure out how to structure prose in a way that felt natural and creative.
You don’t always have to use the word “and” in a sentence — you can use a comma or dashes instead to separate thoughts my nine-year-old mind told me. That was a revelation!
When I was ten, I shyly read to my mother a poem I’d written at school that day. She was washing dishes, wearing a colorful apron tied around her skirt. She put down the dishtowel and turned all the way around to…

