About Rita
The Teacher…
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -Benjamin Franklin
From the time I was old enough to understand that someday I’d grow up to be someone, I knew I’d become a teacher. My grandfather shook his school bell on the steps of a one-room schoolhouse. He passed that bell on to my father who passed it onto me. This old, brass bell sat on my desk in Mission Viejo, California, until I retired after 42 years as a third-generation elementary school teacher. But before my retirement, I set out on a grand adventure to study and teach a year in mainland China.
With a Master’s in International Studies and the life changing experience of living in China behind me, I began another journey to write my memoir of China, HIDDEN Under My Rice - one teacher’s struggle to achieve the impossible in China.
The Writer…
My childhood blossomed with the vibrancy of storytelling: my father’s fish tales around the campfire, my mother’s fairytales before she tucked me in at night, my grandmother’s adventure stories during summers on the farm and always to remember, the radio mysteries of Inner Sanctum that sent me shivering under my covers at night.
It seems as inevitable as becoming a teacher was to be, so the art of storytelling and writing would take center stage later in my life. As a writer for “Guideposts Magazine”, my inspirational stories have been published in “Angels”, “Mysterious Ways”, and “Guideposts”. My memoir of living and teaching in China, HIDDEN Under My Rice, is soon to be published.
I write non-fiction, inspirational short stories, and children’s literature with a children’s book series in the works, Swing High Sally. I also dabble in screenplays.