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Pamela Ditchoff
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Biography

Born on September 21, 1950 to Ronald E. Reed and Beatrice W. Reed, Ditchoff was raised with two siblings in Lansing and East Lansing, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. She began writing poems and stories at age seven. Ditchoff earned an Associates degree from Lansing Community College
Lansing Community College
Lansing Community College is a two-year public college founded in 1957. The college's main campus is located on an urban, 42-acre site in downtown Lansing, Michigan spanning seven city blocks approximately two blocks from the state capital...

 while raising three children as a single mother. She received a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in Communication Arts from Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

 (1982), and an MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in English/Creative Writing from Michigan State University (1985). Ditchoff is married to Paul Ditchoff and lives in Liverpool, Nova Scotia
Liverpool, Nova Scotia
Liverpool is a Canadian community and former town located along the Atlantic Ocean of the Province of Nova Scotia's South Shore. It is situated within the Region of Queens Municipality which is the local governmental unit that comprises all of Queens County, Nova Scotia...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Career

In the mid-1980s, Ditchoff worked at WFSL-TV47 in Lansing as head copywriter/creative consultant and then as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Michigan State University. During this period, her early fiction and poetry was published in various literary magazines.

Ditchoff's first book, Poetry: One, Two, Three, was published by Interact Press, an educational publisher, in 1989, as a guide for teaching poetry in the classroom.

In 1993, Ditchoff was recognized in Who's Who in Writers, Editors & Poets: United States & Canada, 1992-1993 for her significant literary contributions.

Ditchoff's first novel,The Mirror of Monsters and Prodigies, Coffee House Press, 1995, was a semi-fictional oral history of dwarves, giants, conjoined twins
Conjoined twins
Conjoined twins are identical twins whose bodies are joined in utero. A rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 50,000 births to 1 in 100,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa. Approximately half are stillborn, and a smaller fraction of...

, bearded women, and other special people. The book was featured in a segment on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

’s All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...

.

In 2003, Ditchoff’s second novel, Seven Days & Seven Sins, was published by Shaye Areheart Books at Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

. Labeled a modern-day Our Town, the novel explored the subtle tragedies and the hope for redemption tucked deep inside every house in an average suburban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan.

Ditchoff moved to Liverpool in 2006 and completed her third novel, Mrs. Beast, about the lives of the Grimm's Fairy Tales
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales .-Composition:...

 princesses after they said "I Do".

Mrs. Beast was published by Stay Thirsty Press, a division of Stay Thirsty Media, Inc., in March 2009, first as an eBook on the Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

 Platform for the Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

, the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

 and the iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

 touch.

Ditchoff's sequel to Mrs. Beast entitled Princess Beast, a dark and subversive fairy tale coming-of-age story, was published by Stay Thirsty Press in September 2010.

Novels

  • Princess Beast, 2010
  • Mrs. Beast, 2009
  • Seven Days & Seven Sins, 2003
  • The Mirror of Monsters and Prodigies, 1995

Poetry and short fiction

  • Lakeside Park Concert, Gargoyle #48, 2005
  • Fourteen in I Am Becoming The Woman I Wanted, 1994
  • Concert in the Bread Loaf Barn, Whose Woods These Are, 1993
  • This Year's Venison in Vital Lines: Contemporary Fiction About Medicine, 1990

Awards

  • Walter Dakin Fellow, Sewanee
    Sewanee
    Sewanee may refer to:* Sewanee, Tennessee* Sewanee: The University of the South* Sewanee Review* Sewanee Natural Bridge* Saint Andrews-Sewanee School-See also:* Suwanee * Suwannee * Swanee...

     Writers' Conference, 1998.
  • Who's Who in Writers, Editors & Poets: United States & Canada, 1992-1993.
  • John Ciardi
    John Ciardi
    John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and...

     Scholar, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
    Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
    The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont...

    , 1991.
  • Winner, Chicago Review
    Chicago Review
    The Chicago Review is a literary magazine published four times per year in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. It was founded in 1946. Three stories published in the Chicago Review have won the O. Henry Prize...

     Award in Fiction, 1991.
  • Michigan Addy Award for Excellence as producer/director of Artpeace, 1984.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
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