I am now a retired English teacher, who taught for 39 years on the college, high school, and middle school levels. I earned National Board Certification in 2002 in Early Adolescence/English Language Arts, was a Fellow with the Tampa Bay Area Writing Project, and a summer Fellow with the Poynter Institute Writers Camp.
I self-published a memoir in 2016, Growing Up Floridian. “One Gunshot's Long Echo," Chapter 19 of Growing Up Floridian, was originally published in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper in December of 2000 as a "Sunday Journal" story. This chapter is written in third person in contrast to the first person narratives of the other chapters. The text was edited and reduced to fit the word limitation requirement of the newspaper. What is offered in my memoir is the original version written during a 1996 Poynter Institute's Summer Writers Camp for teachers and students under the direction of Dr. Roy Peter Clark, Mary Osborne, and Janie Guilbault and became an inspirational beginning for Growing Up Floridian.
I live in Gulfport, Florida and can be reached via email at taylorm9@hotmail.com. I have recently written two books that are largely set in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s in Reading and Great Barrington, MA and rural Florida during a time when dude ranches were popular and the western cowboy culture dominated television and movie theaters. I think residents in both areas might be interested in the books. The Facebook link offers a preview and the Amazon link connects to both the paperback and ebook editions:
The two volume series, captures the essence of the western cowboy culture that dominated television and movie theaters in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s. A dude ranch culture, given birth and glorified in film, literature, and art, exploded not only in the southwest in AZ and CA, but in New England and New York. Thousands of Americans packed dude ranches every week for several decades along the historic Dude Ranch Trail Scenic Byway, a 40-mile loop beginning and ending at Lake George, New York. Painted Pony Rodeo in Lake Luzerne, 1000 Acres Ranch Resort (founded in 1940 by Jack and Ester Arehart) in Stony Creek, and Ridin-Hy in Warrensburg were favorites. By 1937, an estimated 40 ranches dotted the Catskills, Long Island, Adirondacks, Berkshires, New Jersey highlands, and the Poconos. The eastern ranches had names like the Lazy-J, Box Canyon, Hidden Valley, G-Bar-S, Sun Canyon, and the Bar X.
Natalie fell in love with the western cowboy culture as a child and decided she had to live the culture, marry a cowboy, and live on a ranch. She did not know that such dreams would take her to ranches and rodeos in Florida and take her down a rough and tragic trail. Her journey began in Reading, a suburb of Boston, took her to Great Barrington, Massachusetts and back to Reading. She took a gamble by agreeing to move to rural Indiantown, Florida and another with a move to a ranch outside of Parrish, Florida. After a series of traumatic events, she escaped to the retirement home of her mother in Pinellas County Florida, where she transformed herself into an independent, single mother.
I am now a retired English teacher, who taught for 39 years on the college, high school, and middle school levels. I earned National Board Certification in 2002 in Early Adolescence/English Language Arts, was a Fellow with the Tampa Bay Area Writing Project, and a summer Fellow with the Poynter Institute Writers Camp.
I self-published a memoir in 2016, Growing Up Floridian. “One Gunshot's Long Echo," Chapter 19 of Growing Up Floridian, was...
