Educator by Day, Novelist by Night

My article, “Educator by Day, Novelist by Night” recently appeared in the summer 2026 edition of The Kentucky Thesis, the official newsletter of KCTE (Kentucky Council for Teachers of English).

I was pretty excited to see this article come together. It gave me a chance to reflect on the balancing act of writing and publishing novels while also working a demanding full-time job, but it also helped me realize how lucky I am to have so much support. I truly couldn’t do what I do without my coworkers, friends, and family cheering me on.

There are so many exciting things happening right now. My daughter will be heading off to college this weekend. While I am so proud of her and excited for her new adventure, it’s also (obviously) a bittersweet time of change for our family. I’ve welcomed the distraction of planning a book launch in the midst of the dorm shopping, back to school, hectic scheduling chaos.

I will have lots of exciting updates to share next week, including book tour dates (yes, I’m actually doing a mini book tour this fall/winter!) and information about a fun giveaway. I can’t wait to get Rhodelia into readers’ hands!

In the meantime, here’s the article I submitted to The Kentucky Thesis. I hope you enjoy! 🙂

Educator by Day, Novelist by Night

I wrote my first poem when I was in the third grade. My teacher, Ms. Hawes, laminated it and told me to read it to the whole class. I’d always had something to say, but until that moment, I wasn’t sure anyone would care to listen. 

My first foray into writing an actual book for publication happened when I was 31, after my father’s sudden and unexpected death. Kentucky Family is a collection of essays about his childhood that he started writing 6 months before he died, almost as if he had a premonition of what was to come and wanted those stories to carry on. Flipping through the pages in a cloud of grief, I mentioned to my mother how it was a shame he had never written out the other family stories I remembered because it would make a great book. She looked at me and said, “So why don’t you write it?”

Next, I set my eye on the goal of writing a historical fiction novel. I had been fascinated for years by the story of the last public execution to ever take place in the United States, which happened in Owensboro in 1936. Many people are unaware of these events, and many more don’t know the sheriff’s widow took over his office a few months before the crime. That means a widow and mother of four with no law enforcement experience had to preside over a murder trial and public hanging that was attended by over 20,000 people. 

After months of sporadic research, I wrote Waverly: A Novel in a feverish thirty-day sprint. I felt a desperate need to finish the book before school started back in the fall. As a busy middle school teacher and mother, I figured I wouldn’t have time for writing during the school year. 

I met my goal to finish that first draft in 30 days, but it would take me another year and a half to edit, revise, and polish the manuscript. 

I made many, many mistakes, but in the end, I could not have been prouder of the finished book. I’m still proud of it. After publication, Waverly: A Novel was chosen as the Owensboro Community & Technical College Common Read. I was able to speak to college faculty and students about the writing process, facilitate writing workshops on campus, participate in multiple author and book signing events, and share the “story behind the story” at libraries and with historical groups in Kentucky and Indiana. 

I still had the itch to write, but I couldn’t fathom how to balance writing with a full-time career. In late 2019, I  slowly began outlining my second novel. Then in January 2020, I suffered a brain hemorrhage that left me paralyzed. I spent weeks in the hospital and was finally released, still in a wheelchair, just in time to face the COVID-19 pandemic. 

While everyone else was making sourdough bread and sewing masks, I was doing physical and occupational therapy, sleeping a lot (rest is the best remedy for a brain injury), and wondering if things would ever get back to normal. I also began writing again as a way to process the trauma I was going through. My next book, His Timing: A Journey of Faith, Hope, and Healing is a very personal memoir of that experience.

In 2025, I determined that, by golly, I was going to figure out a way to be an author AND an educator! 

By this point, I had been out of the classroom and working at our board of education office for several years. I no longer have to do lesson plans or deal with grading or parent phone calls, but I am part of our district instructional team that oversees curriculum, instruction, and professional development for 11 schools. The hours are long, and the summer break is short (only 3-4 weeks), so I knew my old plan of writing only during the summer and holiday breaks wasn’t going to cut it – at least not if I wanted to finish more than one book every decade! 

I already get up at 5am to exercise before work, so writing in the mornings isn’t an option. Being an educator means you’re usually falling asleep on the couch by 7pm, so writing at night also doesn’t work for me. I often eat at my desk between meetings, so lunchtime writing sprints aren’t possible, either. 

So how do I do it? What works best for me is an uninterrupted 30-45 minute writing sprint as soon as I get home from work each day, before starting dinner. I take advantage of weekends, blocking off at least a couple of hours on Saturdays and Sundays, either in the early morning or afternoon. Of course, I also block off time during breaks from school to squeeze in writing time whenever and however I can. That means early morning writing sessions in the hotel while on family vacations, or turning those family vacations themselves into writing research trips. Yes, I did actually make my family take a detour on the way home from a trip last year so I could visit the Circus Museum and Hall of Fame to research for my upcoming novel.

Writing with a consistent schedule (nearly) everyday means I can pick up right where I left off during the previous session. When you only have pockets of 20 or 30 minutes to write, you can’t spend 15 of them rereading what you wrote when you last touched the manuscript weeks ago. Instead, my brain easily slips back into the storyline where I left off the day before, and I’m able to use that time more effectively.

Besides setting a schedule and taking advantage of breaks from work when they come, it’s also important to build a community. I am part of a couple of writing networks, but I also have a close group of writing friends, both online and in real life, who are struggling with the same time constraints as me. We commiserate together, but then we get busy. We set goals, hold each other accountable, and, most importantly, cheer each other on every step of the way. 

Writing novels while working another full-time job is obviously difficult, but it’s also incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. Writing is a creative outlet I cherish, from the first outlining and brainstorming phase, to the drafting, editing, and finally publishing. I can’t imagine not doing it.

My next book, Rhodelia, will be released in October 2026. It was inspired by the extraordinary life of a scandalous early 1900s circus performer from a tiny town about an hour from where I live. Writing Rhodelia while working full-time was easier than writing my first novel because of the community, consistent schedule, and support of my family and writing friends. Those factors also mean that I’m already working on my third novel, even while preparing for Rhodelia’s launch.. 

If you have a passion for writing but think it’s impossible to write while teaching, I hope you’ll reconsider. Don’t make plans to finally pursue that writing career when you retire. Instead, build a community, make a schedule that works for you, set goals, and get to work.