My mother was an aspiring writer. She really only published a couple things: a short pamphlet on Gilmer County WV in the Civil War, and an article for an opera journal. She also had a few articles and short stories published in local newspapers. But she loved to write, and I can hardly remember seeing her without a notebook on her lap, unless she was playing her flute or working in her garden. She was graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in English, and was granted a second degree from Christopher Newport University, posthumously. She had been working toward a degree in music when she moved from Newport News Virginia to Tanner West Virginia, and never completed the required music credits. But she had taken so many classes before she left that she had actually earned enough credits for a degree in arts and sciences.