Ciji Living the Writer’s Life

This is the place where the “Two Sides of Ciji” are likely to turn up as I write about my dual-track fiction and nonfiction careers and ruminate on why I’ve chosen to sort of do the “Left Brain/Right Brain” thing when it comes to living the writer’s life.

I come from a long line of “Uppity Women” of Scottish-American descent, and my great-grandmother, Elfie McCullough–the tall, statuesque woman second on the left in this picture of five generations of McCullough women (my mother is the babe-in-arms)–lived to be 94. Until her death when I was fifteen-years-old, she and my Great Aunt Marge filled my head with exciting family lore, and claimed that we were descended from the famous (some say infamous) Jane Maxwell, the 4^th Duchess of Gordon.

Now, you need to understand that Hazel (Elifie McCullough’s daughter and my grandmother, Hazel, dressed in white, sitting in the rocker holding the baby) was mortified Read more