I am a juggling writer. Both literally and figuratively.
Literally, I am both a writer and a juggler. I write fiction, and I also write for a living. I also juggle. Give me any three objects and I’ll juggle them. I once juggled a stapler, a half-filled water bottle, and a dead bug for my students (I used to be a teacher, but more on that later). I sometimes juggle while running. I juggle while doing strength straining. I have a wild dream of one day launching an exercise program called Total Juggling Fitness.
Figuratively, I’m a juggling writer because I juggle a lot of things while also trying to be a writer. Here’s how it got started:
My first career was as a high school English teacher. I was also the school’s head cross country and head track coach. When I wasn’t teaching or coaching, I was writing. I wrote hundreds of stories over the course of my first few years of teaching. When I started sending out my writing, I became frustrated with the untimely and impersonal way publications responded to submissions. Thinking I knew a better way, I started the literary magazine Bartleby Snopes. So I was a teacher, a coach, a writer, and the managing editor of a literary magazine. If that’s not juggling, I don’t know what is. Oh, and I was also a new dad.
I managed Bartleby Snopes for 9 years before closing the magazine to focus on other things. I taught high school English for 9 years before moving to the Twin Cities to start a career in digital marketing and copywriting. Maybe 9 is some magic number for me. But I’ve been writing and juggling for a lot more than 9 years, and I don’t anticipate stopping either anytime soon.
As managing editor of Bartleby Snopes, I received tens of thousands of submissions and published close to 1,000 writers. As a fiction writer, I’ve had over 200 short stories published along with a novel, a novella, and a short story collection. As a coach, I was once named the Missouri State High School Association Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year. But perhaps my biggest claim to fame was setting a world record by running a mile backwards while juggling in 8 minutes and 22 seconds. The record was confirmed by The Book of Alternative Records, but it has since been broken by Joe Salter. Someday, I will get my record back.
The main purpose of The Juggling Writer website is to help writers get published.
The Juggling Writer is where I share my ramblings, musings, and advice about writing and other topics. All writers are jugglers. I hope I can help some of them juggle a little better.
I currently live in the Twin Cities where I juggle my career, my writing, my running, my wife, and my two daughters.