I’ve been a writer all my life. I just thought you had to have a job title to make that legitimate. So I’ve been a social-research professional for a couple of places, and an academic in a couple of other places, but all throughout, I’ve just been a writer and storyteller.
Although I’m nominally retired, I continue to offer professional services to higher education clients—leading faculty development, coordinating assessment and accreditation efforts, and giving conference talks to audiences from 25 to 600. But since leaving higher ed, I’ve been drawn to write fiction as a primary calling, and have participated in the Bread Loaf Writers Conference (2017) and the Postgraduate Writers Conference at the Vermont College of Fine Arts (2018).
After 22 different addresses in seven states, I’ve finally settled since 2013 in a tiny village in Vermont with my wife and work partner Nora Rubinstein (herself a gifted novelist) and various animals—some current, some past, probably some yet to come. I served on our town’s Selectboard for six years (2014-20), with duties ranging from writing grant proposals to calling a neighbor yet again about their loose dog, and have been our town’s Emergency Management Director (2017 to present), coordinating COVID response and managing endless documentation every time we have roads that wash out in a storm.
Herb Childress 