Hi! My Name Is Adelia Ritchie
and I’m a writer too!
Writing an introductory bio has always been a challenge for me. I’ve done just about everything a girl can ever dream of doing: an international flight attendant, a professor of organic chemistry, a civilian staff officer in the Department of Defense, a belly dancer, a systems engineer, editor of the Military Operations Research Society journal PHALANX, inventor and entrepreneur, and now, retired, a Master Gardener, climate change activist, and poet.
Some have suggested that perhaps I have trouble holding a job.
Years ago, my boss-to-be, studying my résumé and glaring at me across his desk, said, “For a person so young, you’ve had the career of ten people.” At first I was flattered, until I realized he was not paying me a compliment.
Fortunately, he hired me anyway, an enthusiastic, ambitious, female PhD in physical organic chemistry, with a minor in nuclear magnetic resonance.
And fortunately for him and his newly established office in the Pentagon, I would fill a civilian position equal in rank to a full colonel, and at the same time check an “equal opportunity” box for those bat-winged, basement-dwelling denizens of the Pentagon personnel office.
That was more than 30 years ago…
Since those days, I’ve also done too many things to count, but the bulk of that time I was the proud product inventor and founder of DERMagic Skin Care for Animals, growing that business for more than a decade before selling out and settling down to retired life. And that’s where the real fun began.
I’m a recovering technical writer. Nowadays I write poetry, short stories, essays, and I’m working on a memoir about my gadabout dad, in whose missteps I seem to have inadvertently followed. I write to elicit a smile, a surprise, a jolt, an upwelling of emotion, and to relieve the aching back-pressure of decades of experiences and ideas that just need to get out there.
Thank you, Tree Langdon and Dr Mehmet Yildiz for inviting me to Illumination. I am thrilled to participate in a community of such outstanding poets and writers!