Electric Typewriter-Jane Hodges

I’m a journalist, creative writer, &

program creator. I’ve been telling

compelling stories for over 25 years.

Bent over my typewriter with stacks of tourism bureau brochures, as a kid I produced my family’s travel magazine, Magical Weekends (circulation: Mom and Dad), in which I planned vacation itineraries in rigid time chunks resembling a school day. In middle school I spent babysitting money on women’s magazines, taking psychological quizzes to learn how to get guys to like me and/or become a boss-woman worthy of her suit’s shoulder pads. My takeaway from those glossies was this: Most writers’ bios indicated that there was a career in New York City called freelance writer involving writing articles and books from home. It was the life for me; I was living it, albeit in my sheltered Southern childhood and without a W9. So, at 22, I took Manhattan, and for a decade I worked at papers, trade journals, and magazines, first on staff, then freelance, dragging several friends to the Catskills town of Liberty for a “summer share” and readings at KGB along the way. Much as my heart will always belong to Manhattan, I eventually knew it was time to go: I hauled west for better real estate, gentler gentlemen, and coffee.

Since 2002, I’ve made Seattle home – it’s where I’ve written articles (and a book) about personal finance and real estate, and where I’ve also sought some targeted education and bought a property within which to build a nonprofit and offer community for creative people. Maybe it’s because I’m a Capricorn with lots of Pisces in my chart and sometimes need to escape from hard work, or because my father was a math man and my mother musical, or because I’ve lost lots of loved ones and hear from their ghosts in dreams, but at midlife I’ve accepted that I am a person working under my own strange constellation of guiding stars: creativity, practicality, organization, and mystery.

Jane Hodges as Girl on Dock-Vintage Photo

(That's me on the left barefoot and daydreaming on my aunt's dock in Wilmington, North Carolina, with my older sister who's wearing Keds in what now appears to be a portent of her future in shoe retailing.)