When I told Professor Feinman that she was partially responsible for saving me from law school, I wasn’t joking.  

My years at Georgetown were filled with tons of great writing experiences: working for The Hoya, working as a publicity intern at a literary press, publishing travel pieces during my stint studying abroad in Ireland, and interning at Washingtonpost.com as part of Professor Feinman’s internship class. When I was offered the Washingtonpost.com internship my senior year, I was also offered one in a governmental agency the very same week. It took me about two seconds to decide which one I wanted. If that wasn’t an indication I had no business going to law school, I don’t know what was. 

That decision set into motion a chain of events that would eventually lead me down a path I never could have predicted. I didn’t even know what an MFA was when I was in college—that’s Master of Fine Arts, for those of you like me—and after working for a year in a publishing company following graduation, I earned my MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College. In class, I read books like Tracy Kidder’s Mountain Beyond Mountains and I knew that what I ultimately wanted to do was write books, preferably narrative nonfiction. My nonfiction thesis (a memoir) was selected as a finalist for “Best Thesis” and as soon as I graduated, I shopped it around to an agent. I found someone who really believed in my work and helped me shape the material, and within weeks of submitting it to publishers, I got a book deal. My book, tentatively titled Almost Normal, explores the impact of chronic illness in adults in their 20s and 30s on medicine and society and is slated for publication in July 2008 by Walker and Co (Bloomsbury USA). My website, http://www.achronicdose.com, also explores many of the issues I discuss in the book.  

While working towards my MFA, I also started building a freelance career. My personal essays have been published in The Boston Globe and other places, and I’ve written almost one hundred health/science pieces over the past few years. I also teach advanced writing classes at Northeastern University in Boston, Ma. I love it. It gives me the flexibility to work on my book(s) and freelance pieces and I truly enjoy working with my students. 

If I’d gone to law school, I would likely be a second-year associate right now. Perhaps I’d have a more stable, traditional job, but I wouldn’t have an MFA, a forthcoming book, or overwhelming gratitude for the fact that I am one of the lucky ones: I get to take my passion and make it my career.