Vicissitudes

By Gloria Hatrick   

Once upon a time, I had a teacher, a Miss Campbell, who wrote in red ink on the bottom of my essay, “This is rather well done. Is it entirely original?” 

which is bad, except it made me think I might be a writer, 

which is good, except her comment was my only vindication for a long time,

which is bad, except I kept the essay on which the comment had appeared,

which is good, except I ended up moving around and the essay barely survived,

which is bad, except all that moving around gave me lots of stuff to write about,

which is good, except all that moving around also got in the way of my writing,

which is bad, except from time to time the essay would resurface and move me to write, 

which is good, except I began to fear I had not lived up to my promise as a writer,

which is bad, except I framed the essay on my wall, where I read it most days,

which is rather well done, Miss Campbell. 

Gloria Hatrick writes for children and young adults. Masks was first published in the UK and  nominated for a Smarties Book Prize, then by Orchard Books. Nightmare in 3-D and Creature from the Club Lagoona appeared in a spinoff of the Goosebumps series. Gloria lived and taught in Nigeria, Germany and England, where she spent twenty years. Once home, she taught memoir writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Now in Oregon, she is a volunteer literacy teacher. Current projects are a Young Adult novel set in the segregated south of 1963 and a mystery series for beginning readers, her favorite audience.to a cardboard box which eventually ended up on a shelf.