Cynthia Reed

As May 2013 rolled around, Cynthia discovered she'd taken the last in a series of English

language writing classes in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- and was considering starting them all over again. For wannabe writers, it was "the only (English language) game in town." She'd moved to Malaysia in early 2011--after about ten years in the UK--with a NaNoWriMo draft under one arm and no plans whatsoever to write short stories.

My Malaysian writing instructor, the amazing Sharon Bakar, suggested WVU. "You ought to check out Writers Village University," she said. "They've got an F2K special on right now." And so she did. And all these years later, she’s still here.

Malaysia’s no longer home –- it's Swedish lessons (and citizenship) now –- but WVU continues to be her foldable, packable, constant 'writing home.' When the MFA program began, she jumped into the three-year MFA Creative Writing certificate course. She has largely finished it, though there are a couple of major projects and story workshops yet to complete. She does love the flexibility of it but really ought to get busy.

Along the way she has had eight or so short stories published (She finds submissions the last thing she manage to do) and she is now editing and rewriting a linked collection of stories that span much of the 20th century. She says, “I never could have gotten this far without WVU resources, classes, ideas and instructors.”

Originally a California/Idaho/Washington girl, her 'old life' was in the high-tech world: technical writing, marketing communications, travel and social media for global corporations. Now, it’s the writerly life here in the woods, with Mr. Right and their Alaskan Malamute, Sesi, surrounded on three sides by the Baltic, writing less than she thinks she ‘should,’ but life is darned good.