About Amy Rauch Neilson
Some people spend a lifetime searching for their calling. I got lucky. My calling is writing and it found me. I began writing books when I was six years old and in the first grade. I wrote and illustrated books on anything and everything that interested me - from the solar system to bugs and frogs. Our school librarian covered and bound these first attempts with scraps of unused wallpaper and put them on the library shelves amongst all the other books. I beamed with pride. She took me as seriously as I took myself - and ignited a fire within me.
When I was in the third grade, with the encouragement of my teacher, Mrs. Judith Guertin, I entered an essay contest for K-12 students in the city of Farmington, Michigan. I remember being so excited about it that I ran home to tell my Mom and Dad. Dad wasn't home from work yet and Mom was on the phone and waved me away. Imagine her shock and surprise when the judges called her a few weeks later to tell her that I'd taken second place!
From then on, my life and writing just naturally dovetailed. I was an editor of my high school newspaper, The Catalyst, and went on to take the Journalism Award for my graduating class. I was top of my class in the School of Journalism at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan and was hired as a reporter long before I finished my bachelor's degree - first for a twice-weekly, then for a daily newspaper. I've made a living as a writer for more than two decades now.
Every once in a while, the question, What Would You Do if You Won the Lottery? is the topic of conversation. Oftentimes, people tell me they'd stop working, pursue their hobbies, do some volunteer work. The question inevitably makes its way around to me. What would I do? Would I stop writing?
I can't. It's physically, mentally, and emotionally impossible for me to do so. I discovered this the summer after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, when I was going through chemotherapy treatments. Of course no one expected me to work. My doctors advised against it. I needed to concentrate on getting well, they said. And that certainly sounded reasonable.
So, I stopped doing anything besides taking care of my six-month-old baby boy and going through the regimen of surgeries and treatments. At first, that was fine. But then I became very depressed, though I couldn't put my finger on just why. Then, in early August, I got a phone call. It was from one of the editors for whom I'd done a lot of work. She wondered if I was feeling better...and if I might be interested in being the project manager for the association's 60-page annual conference program? Of course, the deadline was tight, she explained...they needed it completed within three weeks...she knew I was sick, of course, but they'd thought of me for the project first...
Despite protests from my friends and family, I said yes. And it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Once I began writing and editing the text, working with the graphic designer, hunting down the missing pieces of information, my depression lifted. I felt exhilarated and more alive than I had in months. This, this is what I'm meant to be doing...and I haven't slowed down ever since.
When I'm not at my computer, typing at the speed of light, I'm with my family and friends. There's nothing I love more than to be with my husband and my young son, sledding down a big hill in the winter, searching for caterpillars and tadpoles in the spring, jumping in a pile of crunchy leaves in the fall, splashing in the water in the summer.
But whatever I'm doing, writing is never far from my mind. Everything around me is a possibility - every snippet of conversation I overhear, every piece of scenery, every experience. Writing is my calling and thankfully, it not only found me, but found me early on. And for that, I consider myself lucky.