Poet

Olivia Stiffler lives in the Low Country of South Carolina, a landscape wholly unlike the hills of Missouri where she came of age and spent most of her work life as a free-lance stenotype reporter, a job she does not regret leaving.  Among her southern neighbors are a plethora of snakes, water fowl, alligators, and an occasional panther.

She has one child, a daughter with multiple degrees; one granddaughter, a preteen with an acute case of creativity who dislikes math as much as her grandma; and a second husband, a retired FBI agent who studies the market, plays bridge, and otherwise indulges her need for solitude.  The couple are especially fond of ballroom dancing but have been known to veer into the Carolina shag from time to time.

Paraphrasing the poet Philip Larkin, Stiffler tells herself, and others, it is not necessary to be an Olympic writer to qualify for the game, but she is unsure if that line is an excuse for a less-than-stellar performance or encouragement to keep on writing poetry.

Olivia has recently taken up classical guitar, thus probing the depths of humility, a state well known to poets.