Greetings! I'm a retired elementary educator, who has always enjoyed reading good books and dabbling in the writing world. After retirement, more time on my hands has led to an adventurous life style and the development of my interest and skill in writing. My first project was a memoir about a service trip down the Mississippi River with my husband in the tandem wooden kayak we built. Paddle for a Purpose, published by eLectio Publishing in 2018, received the 2019 First Place Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence in the category of memoir. The companion website (www.paddleforapurpose.net) has an interactive map and five photo galleries that readers and others can access by its url and by a QR code printed in the book itself.

Working with other writers at AllWriters' Workspace and Workshop in Waukesha, WI, I began to try my hand at poetry, as well. My collection of poems about the Mississippi River won First Place in the National Poetry Writing Month chapbook contest by Local Gems Press in 2021. This chapbook, Mississippi Meanderings, was published in 2024 by Finishing Line Press. It also has a QR code in the book which brings readers to my author website. There they find a gallery of my photos which inspired the poems in the collection.

My latest adventure was a bicycle trip with my husband, from Key West, Florida to Calais, Maine during the summer of 2022. The trip was over three thousand miles, following the East Coast Greenway trail. I'm currently working on a manuscript for a children's book about this trip. You can find out about me and my work at my author website, www.barbgeiger.com.