Welcome to Soup to Nutts

Welcome to Soup to Nutts. My friends will wonder where this came from and I’ll get to that in a moment. Hopefully you will be checking this blog on a regular basis and I wanted to tell you a bit about myself.

I am a single woman, with two grown sons, living in the Midwest and working in Corporate America. On the side, I teach a Communications (Public Speaking) class at a local community college. But I do have an edgier, at least for the Midwest, side. I regularly attend science fiction conventions, and used to compete in the Masquerades. Reading is one of my passions and that has led to me writing fiction, mostly science fiction/fantasy and erotica.

I have perhaps piqued your interest with that last bit. You can find one of my short stories “Rural Mom Vows to Keep Alien Lovechild” in the anthology Houston, We Have Bubbas, published by Yard Dog Press. If you don’t know them, look them up (yarddogpress.com) . They have many fine authors in the group. Another of my stories, “The Congress of the Crow”, appears in The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra. And I have other stories in submission at the moment, so many fingers are crossed that those are accepted.

In addition to writing short stories, I have strong writing skills in other areas and hope this might lead to some freelance writing or proofing work. My somewhat checkered past includes writing ads, news releases, speeches, reports, research papers (I have a Masters in Communication so I’ve written a lot of those), as well as editing and proofing papers for friends and colleagues.

Other interesting tidbits – I lived for three years in Jakarta, Indonesia, where I worked part-time at the American Embassy as the Assistant to the Librarian for Southeast Asia. I have run and been on staff for Art Shows at several Midwest science fiction conventions. It will come as no surprise that I am a cat person, although I love most animals. Like many of my friends, I am technically challenged and do not own a smart phone or an Ipad. Although I may splurge with my tax refund and get an Ebook reader. My past includes some stellar performances on stage for community theaters (No, really, I have the reviews).

Hopefully, this gives you an overview of who I am as a person and what I might decide to write about. And that brings me to the title of the blog. I grew up in a small town in Western Illinois, and my family owned the local radio station. As a result, I took part in the family business by writing copy and news reports, selecting and filing records, taping spots, and occasionally going on-air. My Dad had his own show in the mornings called Soup to Nutts (surprise all, my maiden name was Nutt), in which he discussed local happenings, civic meetings, family news (“Oh my God, Dad, you didn’t say that on the air!”), and whatever struck his fancy. Since I plan to write about whatever I find interesting and worth sharing, I thought this would be a nice tribute to Dad and all the years he brought smiles and information to people in a three county area. He was a very special person and is still missed in the community. Not wishing to skimp on Mom, I should mention she had her own show called “Mainly for Women”, and was equally appreciated. But you can see why I chose Dad’s show title instead.

So there it is. I plan to post twice weekly. We shall see if I can keep on that schedule. “Procrastination” is my sign, and I must rely on my friends to kick my butt if I don’t keep up. If it is true that we are defined by the quality and character of our friends, then I am a pretty spiffy person indeed.