Brenda Coxe

I began writing poetry in high school just to put my feelings into words. The thought of publishing never even occurred to me at that time in my life. It was some years later when I started writing stories--nothing too elaborate or fanciful or even that I thought would be good enough for publication.

When I went to college in 1990 I started thinking more about writing and wondered if I could maybe think about writing professionally at some point. After a couple of my instructors praised my writing I began writing more--I didn't have a computer at home at that time, so everything was in long hand, and unfortunately some has been lost along the way.

In 1998 I finally got online, and with the encouragement of a friend I started giving publication some serious though. I began joining writing lists and thinking of things I needed to do. In the early part of the decade I volunteered for an online publication where I also published some of my own writing. This experience also made me think more about publication, especially after some compliments on my poetry by a former musician.

In November 2005 my full-time position was downsized, and I decided to pursue a career in freelance writing. While it's not been an easy transition, it is certainly an enjoyable one. While my real love is fiction, I write on many different non-fiction topics for various clients in order to carry my load of the household bills (this hasn't always been easy either, but it is beginning to pick up again). My hope is to begin writing for higher paid publications in order to have the time to pursue my real love, fiction-writing.