Dude, Where's My Muse?

Although she was raised as a Military Brat, Marilyn Celeste Morris was born in her grandfather’s house in Toronto, Texas, a small Southern Pacific Railroad Section six miles west of Alpine. Perhaps as an omen of what would be the next twenty years of her life, the railroad’s abandonment of this settlement shortly afterward left her with no “permanent” home.

Schooling consisted of Dependents’ Schools while overseas, in Seoul Korea, 1946-47 and Linz, Austria (1949-1952) and various schools stateside. A rarity for a Military Brat, she was fortunate enough to have attended all three high school years and graduated at Lawton Senior High School, Lawton OK. Further education was attained at Cameron State College, Lawton OK, Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX, and North Texas State University. She received an AAS Degree in Mental Health in 1995.

Morris began her writing career as a guest columnist in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and for ten years wrote a weekly humor/human interest column for a weekly newspaper in the Fort Worth TX area.

She has taught creative writing at Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX, survived numerous book signings and speaking engagements; and is experienced in interviewing on both radio and television. Her first novel, Sabbath’s Room, a paranormal murder mystery was published in 2001.

In August 2002, Once a Brat was released. Described as “part travelogue, part therapy session,” she relates sometimes hilarious, sometimes wrenchingly sad experiences of an Army officer’s daughter from 1938 to her father’s retirement in 1958.

Her other non-fiction book, Diagnosis: Lupus, The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient, chronicles her intensive three-year, five doctor search for diagnosis and treatment of her baffling sympt

oms, her struggles with God and society, her anger and frustration (“But you don’t look sick!”) vividly expressed in her daily writings from first symptoms to current remission. All three books are available on Amazon.com or a local bookstore can order them for you.

Her latest work was released in an e-book form on June 9, 2007. The Women of Camp Sobingo, although a novel, draws on her mother’s experiences as an army wife in a military compound in Seoul, Korea, right after WWII.

When not writing or editing emerging writers’ manuscripts, Morris enjoys searching for former classmates and true to her Brat heritage, she has a suitcase packed under the bed, ready to travel at a moment’s notice.

Marilyn Celeste Morris may be reached by email: marilyncmorris@sbcglobal.net to schedule a speaking engagement or arrange for editing services. See also http://www.freewebs.com/graceworksproductions/ for excerpts of all three books.