Tell us about yourself.

My name is Dena Harris and I graduated from the UNC-G LIS program in December of 1998. I worked for a year as a database librarian at Lorillard Tobacco before taking some time off to travel and do volunteer work. While volunteering at the Women’s Resource Center in Greensboro, I discovered I had a real passion in working with women and took a job there as the Director of their New Choices program which helps displaced homemakers re-enter the workforce. I started writing articles for the News & Record about job search strategies and discovered I loved writing (and, okay, seeing my name in print). From there I took some online writing classes and landed a humor column for a cat magazine which led to my first book, Lessons In Stalking. I kept writing pet and job search strategy articles for magazines, as well as teaching public speaking and magazine writing workshops. That led to, in no particular order, to my becoming assistant editor of the Greensboro-based Diversity Woman magazine, a second book called For the Love of Cats, speaking engagements at writers conferences around the country, and starting my own business, Write For You, which targets small businesses who can’t afford a full-time writer but need assistance with copy for brochures, web sites, press releases, etc.