An Autobiographical Sketch
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In 1992, I moved south and accepted a position as a general editor with the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. My duties in that position included helping to research and coordinate the production of many different types of publications, from simple tri-fold brochures and promotional materials to lesson plans, audiovisual scripts, and classroom discussion guides to exhibit labels, multi-page exhibition study guides, and an eight-page tabloid newsletter. It was at this time, too, that I began to earnestly pursue my love of personal history and to discover and recognize the under-appreciated and often little-known contributions that “simple folk” and “rag’lar” families make to history in the courses of their everyday lives.
Less than three years later, I was hired to be project editor, text editor, and design editor of Tar Heel Junior Historian. Produced by the NCMOH, THJH is a history magazine for the Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, a free “club” of (then) about 9,000 schoolchildren from all across North Carolina. My work with this publication revolved around researching and ghostwriting or fact-checking and rewriting the contributions for each topical issue.
Since most of the writers were subject specialists, analysts, and professors, I often had to work with them to review, edit, and revise their material so it could be read and understood by the magazine’s audience. As a result of working with them, I discovered that I enjoyed planning and coordinating projects from conception to publication; I grew to find fulfillment in helping inexperienced writers to outline, draft, and
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