Barbara Sabonis-Chafee

My writing career began at my 10th birthday when a friend gave me a little green Girl Scout diary with a lock. Every day from then to graduation from college, I faithfully wrote in an annual diary a blow-by-blow description of that day . . . things as interesting as ‘we had a spelling test, I got two wrong’. By college I began to skip a day, usually when there was something so exciting I was unable to contain it on the one diary page—always vowing I’d go back to capture it when I had more time to distill it but I usually didn’t. In my adulthood I took to journal writing—because it allowed for as many pages as needed—not every day, but whenever there was a compelling thought.

I married and had 4 children. After 10 years of marriage, my husband announced he didn’t like ‘family life’ and deserted the family for his new ‘girlfriend’ (one too young to vote). So life gave me a new challenge; single parenting with a full-time career—which left little time for writing beyond journal entries. When my youngest graduated from college I took early retirement from my teaching position at Palm Beach Community College to write—in-between teaching conversational English in Haiti, Kazakhstan and Thailand.

My writing is non-formula and somewhat unconventional. The Conflagration is my 4th published book.