YRW News & Blog

FROM THERE TO HERE
Hi All –
JoAnne Lucas here. I’m serving as YRW’s secretary this year and so I get to blab about myself. Up front I just want to say that I, too, am a professional writer – mysteries are my first love. Here we go on a chronological journey of why I am here now.
I was born in Fort Worth, Texas. My father had worked for Montgomery Wards for years in various cities as he moved up the corporate ladder. We moved next to Baltimore and lastly to Chicago – corporate headquarters. This was during the World War Two years. At a momentous event when the U.S. military bodily removed Montgomery Ward’s CEO Avery from power, carrying him out in his chair, and my father became the new head. Two years after the War Dad retired from Monkey Wards and we (I have a 6-year older sister) moved to quiet Upland, California where he and Mom opened a clothing store. I was seven and too young to help, so what to do with me? Luckily, Upland had a new movie theater just 2 doors down from our store, so the Grove (named for the citrus community it was then) became my babysitter and I fell in love with movies. I was inspired by the clothes and gorgeous costumes on the screen and my first ambition was to be a fashion designer. As I grew a little older I still wasn’t mature enough to wait on customers, so I did in-house (store) displays with scarves, jewelry and purses and later was able to handle changing the manikins in the windows.
However, my great fashion dream wasn’t to be. When I took art in 7th grade I discovered I couldn’t draw people. Actually, I just flat out couldn’t draw, so I finished the year doing pirate ships instead. High school in Ontario, CA saw me aiming towards a journalism career. Late high school in Sacramento led my star to advertising and I won a scholarship award for my work on the high school newspaper.
Uh-huh. Advertising and me at San Jose State. The college had just gone computer and I slipped through. The computer didn’t have gender restrictions up yet. Did I mention this was 1957? They had never had a female as an advertising major before. The Ad Club was a fraternity I couldn’t join and they did try to set up a sorority with female commercial artists. Three people do not a sorority make, especially as the other two were seniors and I had four years ahead of me. It finally dawned on me that this was a male-dominated world and ERA hadn’t sparked yet.
So, I went to work in a department store where, among other things, I worked on promotions. I met my husband Al and married in 1960. Yep, 51 years and counting. In 1964 Al and his long-time friend Dick Proctor founded the Elaine Powers Figure Control Salons and swept the country with them. I helped with the ads – ideas, copy, and such but –
I still couldn’t draw.
1970 Elaine Powers was bought out by a medical conglomerate and we moved to Fresno. Had a large women’s facility on Blackstone and built a men’s tennis club across the street. It’s now Club Sport. Sold that early on and bought 4 Walls West with a group of investors. It was a real bear to run. Sold out when the court awarded us custody of our 2-year-old grandson Jon.
Whew! Talk about your BACK TO THE FUTURE! I felt I had fallen down a rabbit hole to a time 20 years previous. My children were grown up and moved out, and here I was doing the diaper, potty training, room mother rumba all over again. But, Hey! – It’s a good dance. However, I was home and had a lot of time on my hands. I had written a mystery novel on a manual typewriter some years previous, so now I tried my hand at children’s stories. I still have my epic poem, “There’s A Hippo In My Highchair.”
Finally I joined Valley Writers Network so I could better figure out what I was doing wrong. From there I joined Elnora King’s class, sold several mysteries and won a truck-load of awards. No holding me back now, I joined WIN/WIN, national and the local chapters of Sisters in Crime – where I just finished a 3 year term as president and have reverted to my position as Official Dogsbody – Private Eye Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America and Romance Writers of America national and local chapter where I am now working on a contemporary love story set in Carmel, Fresno, and Hollywood.
Still can’t draw, but I’ve gotten really good at joining.