My First Marriage

My First Marriage

by | Aug 31, 2015 | Blog, Memories, What Lies Within

I married Neil Goodman when I was three years old. He was four. We were inseparable and played together from the time we could walk. Throughout our toddler years, we became best friends. One day while we were playing, Neil turned to me and asked, “Bibby (he couldn’t say the letter “L”), would you marry me?”   (more…)

The Landscape of My Childhood

The Landscape of My Childhood

by | Aug 28, 2015 | Blog, Memories, What Lies Within

The landscape of my childhood was filled with oaks and maples that swayed beside two-story, wood-sided homes with front stoops where parents sat smoking cigarettes on summer evenings while children chased fireflies.

Hillside was a town where neighbors spent time together, chatting while raking leaves and watching them burn in the fall, visiting over coffee and cigarettes on winter mornings, taking storm windows down and putting up screens in the spring, and talking on front stoops during sultry summer evenings when sitting inside became unbearable. Doors remained open, yards unfenced, and we each knew which door to enter when dropping by a neighbor’s house. (more…)

Libby the Late Bloomer

Libby the Late Bloomer

by | Aug 28, 2015 | Blog

I call myself “Libby the Late Bloomer” after the children’s book “Leonard the Late Bloomer” that I read to my classes when I was a student teacher. The reasons: I did not decide to become a writeruntil I was 35, and I did not publish my memoir “What Lies Within” until I was 65.

What was I doing in the years between? Learning my craft. I was an English teacher in my first career, but educational writing does not lend itself to feature stories and biographies. I spent years taking classes and re-learning how to write. I soon discovered my forté was human interest stories.

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