ILLUMINATION Writers

Interview with Terry Mansfield

Featuring creative writers of ILLUMINATION

2022 Update: It looks like Terry left Medium as we cannot access his stories anymore.

Purpose of the Story

In this story, I share an interview I conducted with Terry Mansfield, a prolific writer for eclectic topics, including poetry on ILLUMINATION.

I am connected with Terry on LinkedIn as we have similar professional backgrounds. Terry kindly accepted my invitation to join ILLUMINATION, and he shined.

I am also grateful that Terry accepted my offer to participate in this interview.

My questions are in bold. Terry’s responses are under each question.

Q. Tell us a bit about your background.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, in a poor family, in terms of money. I went to high school at Central High, which was billed as the oldest high school west of the Mississippi. At the age of 19, I joined the U.S. Marine Corps and spent three years in the Marines. While stationed at Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan, I met Kayoko Nakamura, who would become my wife in 1973 (we’ve now been married for 47 years).

Upon completion of my three-year tour of duty, I attended college in St. Louis for two years before transferring to Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, to complete my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. Kayoko and I lived in a tiny apartment with our toddler Timmy. Besides going to school every weekday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., I taught English from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays. Those were very long, grueling days indeed, but Japan was a fascinating and rewarding place in which to live and work.

After living in Japan for three years, we moved back to St. Louis, where I worked full-time in an Educational Grants Office. Then I became Deputy Director of the Southwestern Illinois Area Agency on Aging (SWIAAA), which served the needs of senior citizens across seven counties. While working full-time at SWIAAA, I completed a Master’s Degree in Management in a compressed one-year program. In 1982, I joined the U.S. Army and became an officer. I served in the Army for 20 years, retiring in 2002.

After that, I transitioned to the civilian world and worked for 15 years as a Defense Contractor specializing in Information Technology and Services. Eventually, I rose to the rank of a corporate executive and finally retired at the Vice President level in 2016. I’ve been fully retired since then and have been enjoying my life as a retiree with my wife Kayoko. After I retired, I decided to take up writing as more than a hobby, which led me to Medium.

Q. Why do you write on Medium?

I like to write on Medium because it is an inviting place for writers as well as readers. You can write on any topic you want, which is attractive to me because my interests are very eclectic.

What’s also nice about Medium is that it provides an opportunity to earn some money for your writing, which is a bonus, but not the driving force for me to write.

I also like the collaborative atmosphere of Medium, where you can give and receive feedback from other writers from all around the world. I’ve made some nice virtual friendships through Medium.

Q. What are your values as a writer?

I take great pains to make sure that whatever I write is presented as a high-quality product, to put my best foot forward each time. It’s the same thing I’ve always tried to do in other aspects of my life and has served me well.

As I said, I’m very eclectic in my tastes, so my writing reflects that in the wide variety of topics about which I write. Sometimes I’m serious, but at other times I try to be humorous.

I like to mix things up and always give readers something worth spending their time reading my efforts.

Q. What are the top three books affected your life?

I have read many, many books in my lifetime, so it’s hard to single out just three. When I was in high school, I read a 1954 book called ‘Colditz’ by Henry Chancellor, which was about an escape by prisoners in World War II. This exciting, entertaining book significantly increased my interest in reading from that day forward.

Another book that affected me deeply was the science book ‘The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective’, published in 1973, which ‘was written by astronomer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sagan. Sagan had an almost unique way of explaining complex subjects in a way that a layperson could easily understand them; he popularized science. ‘The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective’ certainly had that effect on me, sparking a life-long interest in scientific subjects.

The third book that made a profound impact on me was the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck, which was published in 1973 and was based on Steinbeck’s 1937 play. Steinbeck was a master of his craft, and ‘Of Mice and Men’ is one of his finest works. Wikipedia describes the book this way: “It tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States.” ‘

Of Mice and Men’ now falls into the classic literature category, but no one should shy away from reading it because it’s a “classic.” In fact, after reading this book, I became much more open to exploring classic books, both fiction and non-fiction.

Q. What are your hobbies?

I like reading all types of material due to my eclectic bent. I enjoy sports in general, but I am a baseball fan in particular, especially of my beloved hometown team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

I also like movies and enjoy watching high-quality TV shows, including documentaries. Streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and others like them, give me far more viewing options than I have enough time in which to indulge myself.

Q. How do you connect with your readers?

It’s pretty simple. I read other writers’ stuff on Medium and often highlight things that catch my attention, as well as leaving comments, of course.

Also, it’s very seldom that I don’t give 50 claps to someone’s writing because if it has kept my attention throughout, it likely deserves max appreciation.

The good thing about all this is that when others see that I’ve read their stuff, chances are pretty good that they’ll pop over to my Medium profile and see what I’ve been up to, which often leads to new followers (I have over 1,000 followers now).

Q. Why did you join ILLUMINATION, and how do you find it so far?

Well, good Doctor, I joined ILLUMINATION because you sent me an invitation to do so a few months ago when your publication was just getting started.

From my perspective, it was, as you like to say, a serendipitous happening. Before that time, I hadn’t been involved with Medium publications, just publishing on my own, instead. Before ILLUMINATION, the number of people reading and engaging with my articles, poems, fiction, etc., was small, to put it mildly. After I started publishing a lot on ILLUMINATION, the rate of engagement increased dramatically, I’m happy to report.

And I eventually got noticed by the Medium Curators, who curated two of my articles within the past month: This article was distributed to #health.

And this article was distributed to #Writing.

Also, recently I was surprised to get an email from Medium saying that I was now a Top Writer on the Movies topic; fancy that. That came out of the blue, though I truly am honored and happy to be included among such excellent company.

In terms of how do I find ILLUMINATION so far, I will say that I am enjoying being a part of the diverse and amazingly talented ILLUMINATION community. It’s a warm and welcoming place.

Q. Who are the top ten writers you follow on ILLUMINATION?

That’s a tough one to answer because there are so many outstanding writers on ILLUMINATION. With apologies upfront to anyone I’m leaving out, I’ll just say that I engage a lot with these ten writers, who are listed in no particular order: Robert Nelson, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Salam Khan, John Ross, Michele Thill, Shin Jie Yong, Paul Myers MBA, Besom & Bletherskite, Kevin Buddaeus, George J. Ziogas.

Again, I apologize to anyone not on the above list because you could have and should have been on there. You can blame it on the esteemed Dr. Yildiz for setting such tight constraints. You’re all favorite writers of mine in my book.

Q. What are your top five stories that you want to share with your audience, and why?

Well, of course, I like ALL of my stuff (at least most of it anyway; I have my good days and not-so-good days like everyone else). But I’ll go with these five pieces which also happens to be my most popular piece by far:

The following article which I’m very proud of because it provides extremely important health information to women of child-bearing age (and also because it got curated in the Health topic).

My most popular poem that’s received lots of positive feedback:

A political satire that was great fun to write and which, by its popularity, must have been a lot of fun to read, as well:

Another effort of mine that was curated, this time in the #writing topic, which I believe provides some helpful, useful advice to writers.

Q. What are the success factors for you as a writer on Medium?

I’ve had very modest success so far on Medium, but I believe whatever success I have had is largely attributable to these factors: writing one or more pieces every day; engaging on a proactive basis with other writers on Medium; promoting my work on external sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Mix, Flipboard, etc.;

I am just enjoying the processing of writing in its own right and not getting too hung up on curation, remuneration, and anything I don’t have any control over.

If anyone out there likes my writing and gets some value out of reading what I write, then I consider myself successful.

Q. What do you recommend to the new writers on ILLUMINATION?

Just do the things I mentioned in the answer above and don’t get down on yourself if you hit a rough patch. It happens to everyone.

Just keep writing as often as you can and things will work out for you in the end. Focus on producing the best quality work you can so you always put your best foot forward.

Q. What are your future plans as a writer?

I will keep writing for Medium and ILLUMINATION and take it one step at a time. I have produced enough material now in various categories that I could put out a book or two if I wanted to. But that’s not a high priority for me right now. Maybe later on, though. We’ll see.

Thank you for your valuable time Terry. I learn a lot from your insightful content and look forward to reading more stories from your creative pen. You are an inspiration to our writers and readers. Hope more of your insightful articles are distributed to topics.

You can connect with Terry on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter.

If you are a writer on ILLUMINATION and would like to be interviewed, please send a request via this link with title of “Interview Request”.

You may also check other interviews I conducted with inspiring writers of ILLUMINATION recently. These stories can provide a great opportunity to know more about our creative writers and connect with them.

P.G. Barnett

Bill Abbate

Kevin Buddaeus

Jill Ebstein

Invitation to writers to join ILLUMINATION

If you want to join our growing, enjoyable, and supportive publication as a writer, please leave a message via this link. We help you become a successful writer on Medium.

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You might check more interviews in the attached collection.

You can find inspiring profiles of ILLUMINATION writers from this story.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

About the Author

Thank you for subscribing to my content. I share my health and well-being stories in my publication, Euphoria. If you are new to Medium, you may join by following this link. A small part of your membership fee will not only support my writing, but your reading times can support many great writers on this platform.

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In addition to self-improvement, leadership, technology, and health, I also enjoy writing about essential molecules such as lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, digestive enzymes, magnesium, creatine, choline, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, CoQ10, NADH, TMG, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, and other nutrients for health and fitness.