Turning Passion Into Purpose
A Conversation with Dorothy Ramsey, Author
After a successful 30-year career as a Compensation Consultant, Dorothy Ramsey was ready to start the career she had always imagined – being a writer. Having graduated with a double major in Creative Writing and Technical Writing from Southwest Missouri State University in 1980, her first work out of college was in Springfield, Missouri, as a freelance writer. This position consisted of writing resumes during the 80s recession, ad copy, and ghost writing/editing. Family circumstances caused her to move to Kansas City where she reluctantly put her writing dreams on hold.
Fast forward to today. I asked Dorothy to share with our readers her journey to publishing her first book in 2021.
How did you get into the Compensation Consulting business?
Dorothy: When I moved to Kansas City, I eventually worked for the HayGroup, the granddaddy of compensation companies. Six months later, I was working as a compensation analyst with Mercer and my career took off from there.
What made you decide to take up writing again?
Dorothy: I would tell my husband my story ideas and he would tell me to “just write them.” Some 20 years later when the Parkland shooting happened, those words rang in my memory. I thought, “We’ve got children in the world who are ready to be engaged in big ideas and maybe this is the time for me to write my book.”
Tell us about the idea behind Milly for Mayor, your first published book.
Dorothy: I had the idea 20 years before I wrote it. Milly for Mayor is set in a small, Midwestern farm town, and the current mayor has been in the job for 12 years. Some locals decide to have fun with the upcoming election and write-in Milly Harless as a candidate. Milly wins, but she’s a mule. The book is intended for middle grade students but a fun read for anyone. I wanted to inspire them to be engaged in the voting process and show them that their voice is important.
Is there a lot to learn about becoming a published writer?
Dorothy: I didn’t know anything. I went to a writer’s workshop, learned a lot from the Nebraska Writers Guild, and marketing on Amazon. I hired Chris Turner with InfusionMedia as my publishing coach.
What do you love about writing?
Dorothy: The power. Having the ability to create a character and give her a problem and then figure out what she does to solve it – that’s really
pretty cool.
Do you have a particular type of book you prefer to write?
Dorothy: I currently have three books in the works. Two are historical-fiction-romance books. One of the historical books covers six generations of a family. I was having difficulty keeping track of dates so I went on Ancestry.com and created a family tree, only to have people contact me about certain dates of my fictitious family being inaccurate. The third book is on compensation design and management for small businesses.
What prompted you to host a Writer's Workshop in Syros, Greece?
Dorothy: It was completely selfish on my part! I went there in 2015 and my friend and I decided we should return in 2017, but we never did.
I couldn’t find any tours on the Internet going there so I called a travel company in Lincoln and asked if they had a tour going to Syros. Their response: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip to go to Europe for some people and they want to see London, Paris, Madrid … no one wants to go to an island they know nothing about and spend a week there.”
Not put off by this, I decided to find a reason to travel to Syros. So I came up with the idea of a Writer’s Workshop. I found enough people who wanted to go. Then I reached out to Karen Shoemaker, a published author in Lincoln, who had conducted other workshops and she agreed to do it. The pandemic was happening and so we postponed the trip for a year only to reschedule three more times. We had 17 attendees; ten were writers.
Do you plan to offer more workshops?
Dorothy: Yes, maybe every two years. People signed up for this trip and it never existed before. Perhaps people do want to travel to a place they’ve never heard of and stay for a week.
Where will Dorothy’s passion take her next?