About T. B. Markinson |

Okay, so you want to know more about me.

Here’s the short, official version:

T.B. Markinson is an American writer based in Massachusetts, who has been lucky enough to live in Britain for six years and in Ireland for a year and a half. When she isn’t writing, she’s traveling the world, watching sports on the telly, visiting pubs in New England, or reading. Not necessarily in that order.

She runs the website I Heart Lesfic and cohosts the Lesbians Who Write podcast.

And for the curious folks, here’s a more personalized version.

I realized early that life is short. Yet that didn’t stop me from wasting many years focusing on the negative instead of the positive. I spent way too much time studying in college instead of having fun. I regret that now.

In my mid-twenties, I found out I had Graves’ disease, a treatable illness but one with no cure. After years of battling the illness, I went into remission, and there’s a possibility of lifelong remission (going on fifteen years as of writing this).

Learning I had a disease that wanted to kill me put life into perspective. Slowly I started to make changes. I stopped driving my car and rode my bike or walked when possible. I went hiking more. Read more. I spent more time with friends, going to dinner and to the movies. My life became peaceful. I felt wonderful.

Then I fell in love with someone I had let slip away six years before. My illness taught me not to have regrets, so I held on this time.

Why did I become a writer? Two reasons immediately pop into my mind.

First: My love of reading.

When I was a kid, I spent many blissful hours reading in my favorite rocking chair. This passion never vanished. Unfortunately, the rocking chair did.

That hasn’t stopped me. I read everywhere. If you were at the post office today and saw a woman reading in line, that may have been me. I always have a book with me. If I don’t, I feel naked and incomplete. By the way, if you know where my rocking chair is, please let me know. I miss my old friend.

Second: Being diagnosed with Graves’ disease may have been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. If it wasn’t for that, I may still be a person who has dreams but doesn’t chase them.

Seriously, you want to know more?

Here’s the gist. I was born in California and moved to Colorado when I was a teenager. Then I headed to Massachusetts to be with the love of my life when I was thirty. Eight years later, we moved to London, England. After five years in the U.K. we moved to Dublin, Ireland for a year and a half. Then, we returned to London for another year, finally arriving back in Boston.

We travel as often as possible, which means we eat a lot of rice and beans to save money. I don’t own a car anymore, which probably disqualifies me as a Californian. But the better half says me not driving is a good thing for humanity.

Here are some random facts about me:

After being in complete denial during my teens and twenties, I’ve become resigned to the fact that I don’t tan and apply SPF fifty whenever I head out into the sun.

I hate most veggies, and I’m very careful when eating mashed potatoes since people who shall not be named, like to hide veggies in them, insisting they’re good for me.

I grew up next to Disneyland, and for my first fourteen years, my summer curfew was right after their fireworks show.

My feet are super ticklish, but I love getting pedicures. When the person scrapes the bottom of my feet, I squirm and giggle.

I love to explore the world but hate getting from point A to B because most forms of transportation (except walking) make me ill.

I once answered phones in an audio/visual department at a university, but I know nothing about technology and spent the majority of the time googling things like What’s a dongle?

I love graphic T-shirts, my favorite being Disney, but I also go gaga for sarcastic quotes.

Once I was trapped for twelve hours in a cabin in Yosemite because a bear was sleeping on the porch.

Speaking of trapped, on a different vacation, our car broke down in a desert in Nevada, and we were stuck on the side of the road for the majority of the day. I learned reading a paperback in extreme heat causes the glue in the binding to completely melt. Instead of turning the page, I’d set it down on the pile of pages that I’d already completed.