Premium Writer
United States 🇺🇸

Amy B

Hire Writer

Bio

Amy is a New York City native who recently relocated to Athens, GA, to pursue a PhD in English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. She has published short stories and essays, and is currently completing her first novel – but she’s also an occasional musician, specializing in vocal music from Eastern Europe. She loves to ride her bike, travel and study languages, and has spent long periods of time in Japan, Brazil, Thailand and Burma. She edits online magazine, 7×7.la, that publishes collaborations between writers and visual artists.

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

Block quote

Ordered list

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3

Unordered list

  • Item A
  • Item B
  • Item C

Text link

Bold text

Emphasis

Superscript

Subscript

As a Story Terrace writer, Amy B interviews customers and turns their life stories into books. Get to know our writer better by reading the autobiographical anecdote below!

The Zoo

My first serious relationship ended a week before I started my summer job at the zoo. Every morning as I drove my parents’ Toyota to work, I’d put on a Dar Williams CD and cry. I felt as tragic as it was possible to feel while wearing an oversize blue T-shirt with gorillas printed on the front.

As an educator at the zoo’s day camp for precocious animal-lovers age 6 to 12, I spent most of my time mediating disputes over popular crayon colors, assuring anxious parents about peanut allergies, and asking my campers, “Is it an emergency?” in a voice that carried the proper ring of adult authority.

The job also brought me – a bookish, city kid – closer than ever before to nature. Much of nature, I learned, was disgusting. I had to learn to do demonstrations with pythons, a tarantula and a Madagascan hissing cockroach the size of my palm. As I held each alien-textured animal in my bare hands, proffering it for the children to touch (“Gently, please, gently!”), I masked my unease. All creatures, adorable or nasty, deserved our interest, did they not? Couldn’t they all inspire wonder?

Our classroom bordered the Silverback gorilla exhibit, separated only by a glass partition. When the children arrived the first day, a heavy curtain obscured it. During lunch, one of us counselors would slowly draw the curtain back and watch as the expansive-looking gorilla “habitat” revealed itself.

Once the children noticed what was happening, they would rush to the window and press their hands and faces against the glass. Sometimes the gorillas went indifferently about their business. Other times they hammed it up, doing tricks or putting their palms against the children’s, prison-visit style.

There was a new baby gorilla that summer, and once I saw the father lie on his back and airplane the baby above him, balancing its stomach on his wide flat feet. My heart caught, watching them. In a way I couldn’t explain, observing this recognizable human gesture made me feel a little less alone.

Soon I lost my fear of the snake and cockroach. I even began to feel a kind of kinship with them. There was something hard and private about them that appealed to me, something I could relate to – in the cockroach’s brittle exterior, the python’s restless wiggle, the spider’s defensive crouch. The snake, like me, had to shed things to stay alive. My breakup might have taught me a new variety of loneliness, but here was a new kind of connection – silent and perhaps entirely imagined, but connection nonetheless.

Start Working With Amy B Today!

At StoryTerrace, we believe that every story deserves to be beautifully preserved and shared across generations. Capture your personal or business journey and share your history, experience and wisdom today.

Get started