Mrs. Decker, the Educator and Author

I’ve always been a writer. As long as I can remember, I’ve been drafting short stories, creating newsletters, and imagining many fantastical stories in my head. In the third grade, I wrote a series of short stories about a purple teenage girl who always got stuck babysitting her twin little siblings. I paid a classmate in fun-shaped erasers to illustrate the book for me, since I wasn’t so much for drawing. Consistently throughout my life, I’ve kept journals. I express my thoughts and feelings better in writing than out loud. In school, I loved any assignment that involved creative writing. In college, when peers reviewed my stories, I often got the same feedback: “This is so authentic! Did that really happen?” 

And the truth is this: yeah, kind of. I always write from my personal experiences. I embellish and I make up details, but writing has always been my outlet to express the thoughts that I have but don’t verbalize. I take moments from my life and contextualize them in a way that helps me process them. That’s why I write best in first person– in a lot of ways, my protagonists are manifestations of myself, or parts of myself that are being expressed.

It’s truly fitting that my first completed novel stars a young teacher as the narrator. My adult life has been characterized by my identity as an educator. Being a teacher is more than a job to many people– it’s a lifestyle. Being a part of the school and public community is engrossing, and it can be impossible to separate it from a personal life. Seriously– I can’t go anywhere in our small town without hearing at least one “Hi, Mrs. Decker!” With my husband, Gaven, being a teacher as well, nowhere is safe from our teacher personalities. The good news is that both of us are authentically ourselves in our respective schools, so it’s not like we have to put on a mask and pretend to be a version of ourselves. 

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve written but never published many short stories and personal anecdotes. It has been a longtime goal of mine to publish a novel, but I hadn’t ever committed fully. 

Fast forward to January of 2023. I set out for the new year with a list of goals, as I always do. I’m a goals-oriented person. On my list, it said simply “Write a draft of a book.” Just complete a draft! Well, as life gets away from you, I made it until October with about ten pages total written. I had a story in my head, I just needed to get it out. I decided that over the course of November, known to the writing community as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, I would commit to solidifying at least 50,000 words of a novel. Because I’m goals-oriented, I broke this down by the day, with a daily word goal of 1,667 words.

I actually finished my 60,000 word draft by November 20th. Like I said, I had a story in my head and I just had to commit to getting it on paper. I typed during my lunch break at school, I typed at home on my laptop, and I thought about the story before I went to sleep at night. 

I spent the next couple of months editing here and there, until I had my first manuscript. 

Then I let the book die. I let it sit idly in my documents for months. After all, I had completed my goal of writing a draft. 2024 was so dedicated to my travel and home goals, and writing fell by the wayside. After getting back from my summer trip, I finally came back to the book and sent it to a few small publishers to see if I got any bites. I wasn’t expecting anything. 

It was early December when I received word from Koehler Books that they had read my manuscript, and they thought I had something worthwhile. And yes, it was mentioned that my writing felt “authentic.” 

As I have continued down this path of merging my writing life into my teaching life, I’ve had to begin thinking of myself as an author. Not just writing quietly for fun, but a real, published author. When John Koehler told me that I need to incorporate the title of “author” into my biography, it felt weird to allow room for any other title but “educator.” Education will always come first to me, but now I get to add another credential. 

Here I am, Mrs. Decker, the Educator and Author.