Hi! This is me (actually, this is Button, my cross-eyed cat).

I’m still trying to decide what I’m going to be when I grow up. I’ve been a technical writer, TV writer-producer in Los Angeles, personal essayist, medical writer/editor, and writing instructor. I not only teach at CityTech, but also currently at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema (episodic tv writing), and have taught at UCLA, Portland State University, Chemeketa Community College, the Art Institute of Portland (I swear I’m not the one that put it out of business!), and some I can’t remember.

I started life in Texas, moved to Seattle, then back to Houston, then Austin, then Los Angeles, then Portland OR, and finally to Brooklyn in 2014 to be closer to my family. I grow herbs, play on my Switch, read a lot, walk a lot, and hang out with Button a lot. We recently lost my other cat, Bailey, and Button’s still lonely, but he does remind me that life is precious… which is why I chose this image.

My name: I was named after my two grandmothers, Donna Mae and Mysie Jackie. I was almost Mysie Mae, but the nurse talked my mother out of it. It’s all very Southern/Texas, and people have, through the years, thought I wasn’t very smart or well-educated because of my Southern drawl (I do still say y’all). And even though my mother changed “Jackie” to “Jacquelyn” (which is misspelled, by the way), I was always called “Jackie” — when I was young, all girls had names ending in some version of ‘ie’ which actually is called a diminutive, and which, in fact, meant we were children rather than adults. It’s a hard thing to disprove, a whole cultural identity to live down. Still feels strange in many ways. Names matter.