About Dorian Cirrone
Here I am in Mrs. Greenspan’s third grade class where I got to be the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker – mainly because I was the only one in the class who already owned a tutu. It was pretty much the peak of my elementary school career. Around this time I not only decided I wanted to be a ballerina, but I also realized how much I liked writing, especially in rhyme. Not long ago, I found my old third grade class newspaper and learned that not only had I plagiarized a poem my uncle had recited to me, but it wasn’t even a very good poem. Thankfully, my uncle did not sue me.
Back then, I thought I had a shot at being a ballerina – ankle socks and all. Even though I loved poetry, I never thought of being a writer. I find this interesting now because being a ballerina is probably a hundred times harder than being a writer – and being a writer is really really hard. Especially if you keep repeating the same words over and over. I continued writing in junior high for the school newspaper. One of my regular assignments was to interview the Boy and Girl of the Month. I distinctly remember writing a lot of: Her favorite food is pizza. Or, His favorite sport is baseball. Amazingly, I later became a journalist.
Here I am in my senior year in high school. Similar to Emily in Prom Kings and Drama Queens, I did not go to the prom. My reason, however, was not as altruistic as Emily’s. Back in those days you had to have a date to go to the prom, which meant you had to be asked by a boy. Can you believe that? No groups of friends going together. No girl power. It was like the prom was Noah’s Ark!
During my senior year of high school, I began teaching ballet, tap, and jazz. I continued to do that for several years while in college. When I stopped teaching dance, I got a job as a proofreader/typist at a local newspaper. My mother had forced me to take typing in high school. Not because she thought I’d be a writer, but because she thought it was a skill I could “fall back on.” I have to admit, it turned out to be one of the best things I did in high school. Since then I have never dissected another frog or proven another theorem, but I’ve still got mad typing skills.
At the newspaper, I worked my way up to feature writer, editorial page editor, and assistant city editor. One of the highlights of my journalism career was shaking hands with President Jimmy Carter at a small press conference for editorial page editors. He later lost re-election, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my fault.
Despite the excitement of working at a newspaper, my desire to write fiction grew. I went back to college and got an M.A. in English and then taught freshman composition as a Ph.D. student. Along the way, I had two children and struggled to write a dissertation and fiction at the same time. Fiction finally won and I abandoned my dissertation after about four chapters. By then I was pretty sure I wanted to be a writer and not a professor of English. A lot of what I learned in graduate school I use in my novels, so the time was not wasted.
I’m still writing fiction and I still like to rhyme, but I try to restrain myself. I live in South Florida with my husband and children. And although I’ve given up my dreams of becoming a ballerina, thanks to Jazzercise, I think I’ve gotten my grande plié back.