From my earliest childhood, my favorite toy was my imagination. I would sit for hours, endlessly inventing stories. Yet, I never wrote a word down until fifth grade when I composed my first poem. My normally rivalrous older sister praised it, a wonder to me. At forty, I began writing short stories, one of which won first place in Lorain County Community College’s writing contest. I proceeded to earn my MA in English with a minor in Creative Writing from John Carroll University where numerous issues of The John Carroll Review published two of my short stories and fifteen of my poems, three of which won second place in a poetry contest. I then taught writing for twelve years at both of my alma maters.

In 2013, I published my first poetry chapbook entitled Heartscape, while writing my first novel, which took me seven years to complete. Published in 2018, Burden of Remembrance is my tribute to the Greatest Generation. It is the story of a multi-generational family living in post-World War II Cleveland which struggles to remain united as each member grapples with his or her own painful memories of abandonment, betrayal, sickness, and war. On the verge of healing, they are further traumatized by the revelation of long-buried, shameful secrets which force them to question the boundaries of loyalty, mercy, and forgiveness.

In 2022, I published my second novel A Melancholy Union, which was inspired by the lives of my maternal great-great-grandparents Samuel and Julia, survivors of the Irish Potato Famine who emigrated to the United States in the 1850s. Weaving meticulous research with my imagination, I gave them voice to recount their lives through alternating chapters. In this way, they draw us into their turbulent world shaped by hunger, hope, poverty, love, sickness, and haunting memories of Civil War battlefields. Finally, they describe how, in struggling to care for their family, they make desperate decisions leading to unimagined consequences.

I began my writing career as a poet, a practice which deeply informs my prose as well. Through vivid imagery and pleasing cadence, my novels draw readers inside the tumultuous lives of my characters. My in-depth research involves both reading about and visiting specific locations, which enables me to infuse my stories with historic and geographic details which transport my readers to an authentic era.

After completing my second novel, I returned to poetry, and in January 2023, I published my second poetry chapbook entitled Kissing the Stone. Finding myself in the midst of a poetry frenzy, I published my third poetry chapbook, Honoring the Goddess in November 2023.

I am excited to announce that I have concluded the first draft of my third novel, a cold-case mystery, which will undergo numerous revisions before it is ready for publication, hopefully late 2024 or early 2025. I am also dabbling with a fourth novel which deals with the metaphysical.

**Writers live or die by reader reviews. If you have read any of my books and enjoyed them, I respectfully ask you to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Useful links:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Monica-Babcock/author/B07XLN1VSS?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_5&qid=1711634508&sr=1-5&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

https://store.loganberrybooks.com/search/apachesolr_search/Monica%20Babcock

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7289274.Monica_Weber_Babcock