Ugly Duckling to PhD – Part 4 of 5

In the last episode, I ended with … I moved back to Astoria and two weeks later flew to Massachusetts to start a Master’s in Fine Arts at Lesley University.

Lesley was very ego stoking. I’d applied to both Vermont and Lesley’s MFA programs and was not only accepted at Vermont but was also enticed with the added bonus of an additional $500 scholarship. Whoo Hoo! Then Lesley University called. I told them I’d already accepted Vermont and the particulars. They called back, matched the scholarship, and sweet talked me. I’m so glad I listened. Lesley’s writing teachers were amazing. I studied with Anita Riggio, Tony Abbott, Pat Lowrey Collins, David Elliott, AJ Verdelle, and many more. I was in heaven once again.

Lesley was a low-residency program (2009-2011), which worked out great in light of what was just around the corner in my life. The night after I returned home from my first on-campus experience, we experienced a 3,000-gallon flood as a pipe in the upstairs bath broke, flooded, and destroyed our 140-year-old Victorian. At three am and faced with the clean-up of water up to my ankles, I was not a cheerful person. I had just arrived home a few hours earlier, was sound asleep recovering from travelling three time zones, preceded by a heady two weeks of 12-hour days on campus. Sigh!

But it was all good … in retrospect. How you may ask?

• The house was gutted but renovated and was once again sound.
• The insurance company was sued but we won.
• I had a cardiac arrest while on the East Coast – I was dead/didn’t stay dead/no damage and the doctors still don’t understand – but I had a pacemaker/defibrillator installed as a precaution (they still don’t know what happened). The upside is that I lived!
• We had to live in an RV for twenty months, but my brother owned one he wasn’t using and sold it to us!
• The UK school I wanted couldn’t take any more PhD students because the professor I wanted was full up, but I was granted a gap year in my scholarship program.

The spring of 2012, I was accepted for an online interview with the English Department at Aberystwyth, a university in Wales rather than England. The trilogy I suggested was too long, so I racked my brain for another idea. I’d had one percolating and pitched that. “Just write up a proposal and send it.” Wow! Was I hearing right?

Elated, I was faced with the reality of outlining a story for which I only had a vague concept. However, my education was on the line, so I sat down, opened my laptop, and wrote. I sent it off not expecting much but it was accepted, and I was going to Europe to finish my schooling. My husband was going with me. We’d have so much fun. The house was almost finished, and our son and family were going to move in and take care of it.

Then all hell broke loose — again.