A bit about Natalie...
I am and always have been a compulsive reader — books, bumper-stickers, cereal boxes — anything with words. Since I learned the letters I've been thumbing the glossy pages of my mother's Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens, studying the charts and articles in my dad's Newsweek and Atlantic and even skimming my brother's comic book magazines. When I was 12, my father forced me into the adult section of the bookstore because my young adult section habit left me with mountains of novels.
But I didn't initially know I wanted to write. The margins of my class notebooks were cluttered with lines and verses that popped into my head during class, but I hadn't considered careers.
At least, not until my mother tried to force me into studying speech therapy in college during my senior year of high school. God bless the woman — she only wanted me to find a path in life — but I had no desire to learn about the cochlea or auditory nerve. Instead, I took a professional writing class and — despite not learning anything about actual journalism — I realized that writing was exactly what I wanted to be doing.
Then came college, The Pitt News, studying abroad and countless professors and peers who have helped me hone my craft. Just the other day, one of my professors told me I took criticism well and I responded in saying that if no one is critiquing you, it means they don't think you can do it better. That's the way I look at it — that I need to strive for improvement and polishing constantly.
But I didn't initially know I wanted to write. The margins of my class notebooks were cluttered with lines and verses that popped into my head during class, but I hadn't considered careers.
At least, not until my mother tried to force me into studying speech therapy in college during my senior year of high school. God bless the woman — she only wanted me to find a path in life — but I had no desire to learn about the cochlea or auditory nerve. Instead, I took a professional writing class and — despite not learning anything about actual journalism — I realized that writing was exactly what I wanted to be doing.
Then came college, The Pitt News, studying abroad and countless professors and peers who have helped me hone my craft. Just the other day, one of my professors told me I took criticism well and I responded in saying that if no one is critiquing you, it means they don't think you can do it better. That's the way I look at it — that I need to strive for improvement and polishing constantly.
