Welcome to Becky Mushko's website
The view from my study window: the Peaks of Otter
Where I'm coming from: I'm a retired teacher/freelance writer/children's writer who lives in Franklin County, Virginia, where I'm close to—but not on—Smith Mountain Lake. I live 15 miles from the town of Rocky Mount, which made national headlines in the summer of 2004 when a bear wandered into Franklin Memorial Hospital. In June 2007, a guy drove his F-150 into the Confederate soldier statue in front of the court house and demolished the entire statue. In November 2007, my tombstone was stolen from my family cemetery.
In mid-May, I appeared on "Cover to Cover," the Blue Ridge Regional Library's cable show on BTW21. My episode (#98) is here.
About my previously published work: My humor column, "Peevish Advice," appeared monthly in Blue Ridge Traditions from 1998 until 2004 and twice a month in the Smith Mountain Eagle from 2004 through 2008.
In 2007, my work appeared in three books. A Cup of Comfort for Writers (Adams Media) contains my story, "Out of the Fog," on page 199. More Peevish Advice (Infinity Publishing) is a collection of my "Peevish Advice" columns from 2001 to 2006. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, published by The Friday Project in the UK, contains my 1996 Bulwer-Lytton "Worst Western" winning sentence. I also contributed to an e-book, Self-Publish Your Book: Authors Share Their Experiences, published by Red Arc Media. In 2007, I also did some freelance writing for Leisure Publishing's 2008 Newcomers Guide to Smith Mountain Lake and for Prime Living. My article, "Blogging to Adventure," (February 2007 issue) is online.
Read my blog or a sample of "Peevish Advice."
NEWS
On August 7, 2008, I learned that I won the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest's "Vile Pun" Division with this dreadful sentence:
Vowing to get revenge on his English teacher for making him memorize Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” Warren decided to pour sugar in her gas tank, but he inadvertently grabbed a sugar substitute so it was actually Splenda in the gas.
