I’m a writer with a varied (“checkered” I believe is the archaic term) background. I was born into a peripatetic family, and have lived in Chicago, New York City, South Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. I spent most of my life in New York, alternating between tiny apartments and bigger two and three family homes in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. When I wasn’t moving, I was dancing. Yes, you may have seen me in a movie. Yes, you might have seen me on TV. If not, you certainly could have seen me waitressing, typing, receptionist-ing, teaching word processing back in the early (DOS screen) days, cat sitting, dog walking, etc. Mostly waitressing.
Later, I went to college, then to law school. Respectability followed, passion died.
I rediscovered passion in writing. I studied poetry with Lisa Bellamy of the Writers Studio, and fiction at Gotham Writers. I keep writing, through rejections and self-doubt, because I love it. Take a look at the “Writing” page for a few of my non-rejected stories and poems.
I also love reading–of course–in both English and Spanish. Check out the “Reading” page for some reviews of recent reads!
I’m currently working on a novel about early 20th Century Butte, Montana–check out the header image. I took that photo in what used to be called Centerville, but is now part of Foreman Park, looking north, on a rainy May day. It’s beautiful and quiet now, but imagine smelter smoke so thick in the air that noon turned to midnight and people had to carry lanterns to walk their kids to school. That was Butte back then. That’s where the novel takes place–and I hope I got a little sulfuric tang to the pages, for authenticity, ya know.
P.S. Glena Trachta was my grandmother’s name. She lived in Montana for much of her life. I took it as a penname because I got sick of seeing a Bed & Breakfast in Scotland or something about JRR Tolkein every time I searched the web for my given name.