When I was in fifth grade, I started my first novel. It was about dragons. And sea serpents. And fire-breathing wolves. I created a map of the world and made about a dozen different flags for the countries it contained. At some point, I decided to actually get some writing done. I’m not sure how far I got, but I would guess about twenty hand-written pages. And then I lost the notebook.
I probably looked for that thing for three weeks solid. I turned the house upside down multiple times. Both houses, mom’s and dad’s. I never really got over it.
I can’t say that I really learned my lesson at that point and never lost work again (it took not one but two separate hard drive crashes to get me to consistently back up my work). But at least it didn’t put me off writing altogether. I’ve kept plugging at it since. I like having other people in my head to think about, and other worlds. And I like figuring out how to fit words to the pictures in my head.
When I’m not writing (or reading, I do a lot of reading), I am a teacher and a scientist. I earned my PhD in Biology in 2017 from Tufts University and found that I like talking and thinking about science more than I like doing research. So I became a high school science teacher. I teach Biology, Environmental Science, and Anatomy, and I play a lot of who-knows-the-sci-fi-reference with my students. I’ve lived on both coasts of the US and was born and raised in the arid middle, but ultimately my heart and home is in the Pacific Northwest.
Clare Parker Fischer 