Author talking to a hip mama at a Hot and Bothered Booklaunch Party!

Author's Current Reality

I live in Burlingon with my two children. Right now I am working toward my MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College, Union Institute and University, and this semester I am also a member of the UI & U Learner Council. My essays have appeared in Harper's, UTNE Reader, and my commentaries on VPR and NPR. I've been a regular contributor of Hip Mama and Vermont Woman Magazine. Hot and Bothered is my first work of fiction.

I am working on my second novel.

Me. Photo taken by my mom, Louise Downey, 1977

Author's Early Years

I was born in New Jersey...near the shore. I still can't go a year with out a trip to the ocean...

My parents divorced when I was four...and my mother (who had been a classic 50s' inspired housewife) embraced feminism and became overnight a short-haired-puncho-platform-shoe-wearing-.N.O.W.-meeting- goer-softball-team-leader-hot single mama! She purchased a yellow Pinto and went back to school to get her Master's in Math.

Me and my brother, Chris. Photo, Louise Downey, 1974

My mom paid the bills while she went back to school by delivering newspapers. She used to stuff my brother and me in the back seat of the Pinto when it was still dark. While she drove and opened mailboxes we slept and dreamed. I remember one year, right before Chiristmas, my mom made all these fancy cookies to put in her customers mailboxes...can you imagine? The next day there were checks and cash tucked into holiday greeting cards, waiting for her...and we giggled and clapped!

After a couple of hard years my mom became a hot-to-trot business lady in a big cooperation and began flying all over the United States (she sometimes even wore a hard hat). But my brother and I didn't see her much and we had a really mean babysitter who ate toasted coconut covered marshmellows. My brother looked after me at that time..he walked me to school..made sure none of the kids called me "Annie Fanny" in the neighborhood..he even taught me how to ride a bike..and when we went ice skating he rubbed my feet and bought me hot chocolate when my feet got cold. I have a really nice big brother.

My step-dad, Brendan, Mom, Chris & Me, Delaware, Ohio. 1978

Then my mom fell in love with crazy-off-the-boat-Irishman. Soon after, my mom's company moved us to Ohio (bye, bye mean babysitter!). The skinny-Irishman moved with us, and soon became our stay-at-home step-dad (I remember he use to play Joe Cocker's "Darling Be Home Soon" over and over when my mother was away on business). Like most stay at home dads of that era (not!) he ordered bulk foods from the Co-op, went to FORC meetings, drove a Mustang, had long hair and a gold front tooth, carved wood, read us Dylan Thomas, laughed, danced, listened to The Beatles, Stones, Tom Waits and took us to Rocky Horror Picture Show and Harold and Maude... My mother, tired of putting on panty hose and dealing with rude male co-workers while we had all the fun at home.. put our house on the market and moved us to Vermont so she could live her dream of owning an herb shop.

My mom and my sister, Maggie. Family Circle Magazine, 1982

Thus, by way of crazy goats, a house that smelled like garlic and roses, loads craft shows, and because...as my stepfather once eloquently put it, "Your mother is driven..I just drive"...my mother came to live her dream through her Rathdowney Herb Shop, and I became a Green Mountain Girl. One year later my sister, Maggie, was born!

Valentine to myself as a Young Girl, by Annie Downey, 1991

To view more photos of my mother, and to learn more about her life today, go to Journey to Mother, A Daughter's Diary