About Me — Maureen Morrissey

Teacher, Wanderer/Wonderer, Writer of Fiction and Reflection

I’m embarking on the latest iteration of my life, full-time writer. It’s how I now respond to the question, “What do you do for a living?” In the past the answer would have been “I’m a teacher,” or “I’m raising three children, three ferrets, two gerbils, a dog, two cats, a mouse, a turtle and a LOT of fish,” or “I’m helping my husband with his home-building business.”

This newest one has me pinching myself to see if I’m dreaming.

Beginnings

I’ve been writing since I was a little girl in the 1960’s. I even had a publishing center in my bedroom where I wrote, illustrated, and stapled together books and tried to sell them. I was a ground-breaker: one of the first indie-published authors!

My first rejection came when I was seven; my mother wouldn’t come off a nickel for a ghost story I was very proud of. It didn’t stop me, but it also didn’t help me think about writing as a full-time gig until I retired from the education world.

I grew up in New York City, the child of Holocaust survivors and refugees. Most of my friends were also first-generation Americans from all over the world, with family histories different than mine. I was surrounded by the stories of friends…