Diane Thomas:  

My :Life So Far Been a long time, so I'll try to keep it short. I graduated from Georgia State in 1964 and got a masters at Columbia University in 1969. My first real job spoiled me rotten. I got hired as a reporter for The Atlanta Constitution and in a few months became their entertainment editor. That meant I got paid to go for free to all the movies and plays that came to town and write reviews about them. After a couple years of this bliss, I took a leave of absence and got a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Theater and Film History and Criticism at Columbia University in New York. When I came back, the Constitution's editor, Ralph McGill, had died and things had really changed there. After a few months I went to work as a feature writer for Atlanta magazine, and after several years I struck out on my own to write advertising, press releases and other stuff. I met a wonderful man, Bill Osher, an administrator at Georgia Tech, in 1978, and we were married a year later. Through this union, I inherited a wonderful 11-year-old stepson, Chris, who now works as an investigative reporter for the Denver Post. In the early 1980s, I had an antibiotic reaction that damaged my liver. From this, I developed a condition known as multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) and became one of those people who is too allergic to leave their home. I'm a lot better now, but progress was slow. There are still lots of things I can't do, like wear cologne or smoke or be around a lot of road work or construction. In 2001, I quit freelancing and started writing a novel. In 2002, Bill retired from Tech and we moved to a lovely mountain community near Jasper, Georgia, where we spent summers and autumns, and to St. George Island, off the Florida panhandle, where we lived during winter and spring. Then in 2...Expand for more