About Angela Cybulski

Photo by Robert Doisneau

Welcome to Persephone Writes! My name is Angela Cybulski. I’m a composition and literature teacher, editor, writer, home schooling mom, happily married wife, and unabashedly Catholic woman who loves the color purple. I’m a recovering academic (said only half-jokingly) who has never truly given herself permission to live her life’s dream of writing. On some level, this blog is the stand-in for the dog-eared moleskin I would have left lying around on the bare wooden chair of the antiquated, moody, one-room studio I rented out in Paris — if I’d ever done such a thing.

After some damaging early experiences involving my fiction writing, I abandoned it and took up non-fiction writing exclusively. I have had some success in this area, but the need to delve into fiction has never left me. Its what I had always aspired to and that aspiration was still alive and well, no matter how I tried to squelch it. After a long time thinking and reading, I jumped in with both feet and started a novel, the first draft of which is nearly finished. It has been a long, slow, and painful process, but one I am truly enjoying because I’ve let go of my preconceived notions about how to go about it and my fears about failure and what others will think, etc. etc. (those can truly go on ad nauseum — best to acknowledge them,  stare ’em down and move on).  Of course, as a full-time wife and home schooling mom, part-time literature and composition teacher, and part-time editor, my free time is on the shy side of non-existant. But I keep plugging along, forcing myself to be content with my snail’s pace because even that is better than standing still. As Yoda says, “There is no try, only do.” I’m doing, and by my standard that’s amazing.

If you’re going to be spending any time here, you should probably know that I love wine, chocolate, anything and everything French or Italian, cooking, old movies, gardening, travel, poetry and pre-Raphaelite art. I tend to think in pictures, which then compose themselves into words. I love art and beauty and believe in nurturing God’s gift of the will to create. And, appropos of nothing, I think The Philadelphia Story and Mad Men are two of the most exquisite examples of “writing and characterization on the big/small screen” ever conceived.

My other blog, one tiny violet, has more to say about “who I am” and “what I’ve done” so feel free to pop on over there for a quick peek if this isn’t enough of an introduction for you. Or email me at persephonewrites (at) gmail (dot) com. Cheers!