Beverly Gray and Me

I am living the life I wanted to live from the time I was four when I decided to be a writer. My desire was only enforced by the Beverly Gray mystery series. No Nancy Drew for me. I wanted to be like Beverly, who not only went to college, she became a journalist and traveled the world.

The first time I set foot in Europe as a new bride of twenty, I felt as if I had come home. Home turned out to be Stuttgart, where my husband was in an Army band. I never wanted to leave. My husband couldn’t wait to come home.

I spent the rest of my adult life trying to get back here, although I had a wonderful time in the process, raising my daughter, building a career, etc. And if I didn't really like the business world, it did provide a good living.

But these days, waking up in either Geneva or Southern France and knowing my day can be spent writing be it on a journalistic article or my anti-war novel as I research my next novel is how I pictured myself spending my life way back when I was curled up under the eaves at 200 Grove Street in Reading. It took me a long time to get here, but at least I did.

This month I will cover a conference in Rome, a city I have never been to. Once the conference starts it won’t matter where I am because I will be busy from morning to night, but this is not a complaint. I love meeting the people, listening to their stories, writing them under pressure and transferring them back to the paper.

I am also scheduled to meet with a professor who has translated cuneiform letters found in Syria. The letters go back to 3000 b.c. and the professor has agreed to meet with me. It was total serendipity that we would be there at the same time, although I would have happily traveled to Rome to meet him at anytime. I even suspect I will get a chance to do a quick tour of Rome that will make me hungry to go back on my own. From Geneva this is neither hard nor expensive, thank you Easy Jet Airlines.

In that way, I am living the life of Beverly Gray, journalist and writer, a dream fulfilled.