People talk about entering the second act of their life as they age. But not me. No way — I’m not settling for only two acts.
I’m in my fourth and counting.
Growing up, I was a math and science nerd who loved to read. After graduating with a degree in biochemistry, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a scientific programmer for many years. Along the way, I picked up a master’s in information systems and rose through the ranks into management. Act One.
Ready for a change, I quit corporate America and set out on my own. Wanting to feed my love of books, I founded a mail-order catalog, the Adoption Book Catalog. Imagine: having a job where you had to read books. I even had a bookstore on the web before Amazon did! Act Two.
But the siren call of technology beckoned, so I became a professor of computer science. I taught students on-campus and even those in prison. Act Three.
And yet, who can resist books? Not me. Wasn’t there some way I could combine my love of science, math, and books?
It turns out, there was.
I’m now a children’s author with three published books and three more on the way. Five of these are picture book biographies of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). Books and STEM—perfect together.
Will I have an Act Five? Who knows!
I’ll have to wait and see.
