I was born during WWII so I grew up using fountain pens. Jane Mathis-Hopson About a year ago, I realized I missed my pens so I dug out the few old ones I'd kept since grad school and began using them again. Bought a few vintage Esterbrooks (the kind I used in high school) and learned about repair, discovered the wealth of web resources about both vintage and new pens, obtained a few moderately-priced new pens, and began to experience the joy of handwriting once more! My first pen show, in Atlanta last March, was a real treat and I'd highly recommend a pen show for anyone who's new to the world of fountain pens. Although I've badly neglected the Snail List in recent months, getting and sending handwritten notes, letters, and cards has been another real treat.
After 25 years in student affairs at liberal-arts colleges in North Carolina and California (student housing, Dean of Students), I now earn my living as a Coordinator of Institutional Research at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (enrollment reports, reporting for the federal government and the state higher education commission, surveys, and the UAB factbook). Charles and I live in a nearby suburb with our torti calico cat, Zoe, and more books than many small-town libraries. We both love European travel, but more often we're involved in our hobbies of scrapbooking and rubber-stamping (me) and bookbinding (Charles). Our three grown children and their spouses are all over the US -- one in Venice, CA; one in NYC; and one in Charleston, SC. And we'll be first-time grandparents in early December.
I love reading -- mostly memoirs, biographies and autobiographies but also poetry, the occasional novel, and (Miles, get this) Shakespeare's history plays. You can take the girl out of the English major (and English master's degree), but you can't take the English studies out of the girl! Have kept journals for more years than I care to mention, and this winter I'll be nurturing my interest in writing at a Natalie Goldberg workshop in Taos, NM.
The new Pentrace site is a wonderful thing, and I wish it and all its contributors the very best of everything!
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