About Me —Lori Mann
Or you can call me Dr. Miss.
Big Picture
I write and I teach. I live on the south side of Chicago.
Up until recently, I spent 90% of my professional time teaching high school Spanish and then crammed in some writing on the side. However, I recently had to take a leave of absence from teaching — thanks, Covid! — and I now spend the majority of my time writing. Both endeavors are hard and humbling.
My teaching days often ended with me feeling too mentally exhausted to even have a conversation with my family. And while my brain is sometimes just as tired now from writing, I am at my happiest because I’m creating something new every day.
This new pandemic life is very quiet.
I have named the four stray cats who periodically wander through our yard Choco, Oreo, Midnight, and Gus. If I haven’t seen one of them in a few days, I worry a bit because sometimes I’m ridiculous like that. We recently got new sod installed and I wondered how the sprinkler would impact their usual route through the gaps in the fence. You will be glad to hear that they adjusted beautifully.
In addition to the four stray cats, I have three sons who are ages 18, 15, and 12. The eighteen-year-old is suddenly doing mannish things like attending university online and shaving regularly and working full time as a delivery driver. It’s all quite strange considering I was pregnant with him fifteen minutes ago. The other two refuse to stay nascent as well and instead are juggling remote learning and sports and eating everything in the house. They are all hilarious people and I’m lucky to be their mom.
I keep by my front door the two trekking poles that I grab when I go hiking every week. I’m currently training for a ten-day trip to Philmont, New Mexico with my sons’ Boy Scout troop. There are many days when I have self-doubt about my ability to adequately prepare, but I push myself to keep training. I don’t want to be “that lady” on the trip who just couldn’t cut it.
There are four cats, three sons, two trekking poles, and…one husband. I call him Mr. Mann and we got married in September 2019. All things considered, going through a pandemic as a newlywed has been quite nice. Mr. Mann is the best part of my life.
Writing Things
I write every day and strive to submit to a Medium publication several times a week. My cuticles bear the brunt of the waiting-related stress. I have contributed to the following publications so far:
- Noteworthy-The Journal Blog
- Teachers on Fire Magazine
- P.S. I Love You
- Heart Affairs
- The Startup
- Self, Inspired
- Climate Conscious
- Fellowship Writers
- Age of Awareness
- The Ascent
- The Synapse
My goal is to contribute to Forge and Better Humans.
Newsletter
I have a newsletter that I send out weekly-ish. It’s a place to discuss our current writing projects and good books and any other cool stuff that pops up. I’d love to have you as a member of the Dr. Miss Community.
This is the subscription link.
My Topics
I enjoy writing about teaching, intermittent fasting, parenting, relationships, feminism, and any other nonsense that floats through my head.
Here are a few pieces that will give you a sense of my writing style.
Contact Information
Email: lorimann921@gmail.com
Thanks for stopping by!
