The Authors' Bios
RENEE FISHER
Renee Fisher was born in Philadelphia, and, from age three, fully intended to become a famous prima ballerina. She received her undergraduate degree in Special Education from Pennsylvania State University and her graduate degree in Special Education from Indiana University. She taught special ed in both Indiana and Virginia.
Since 1979, she has been a Realtor in Virginia. In 2001, she started a speed dating company, Brief Encounters USA, and presently is involved in the startup of a brand new company called Diva Diversions (www.divadiversions.com) .
Renee has had several short stories published, as well as a novel published through iUniverse. She is an Honorable Mention in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. She is currently working on her second novel.
She lives in Arlington, Virginia and has three grown children. She also has a new husband whom she acquired in May 2006.
To this date, she is still an unfulfilled ballerina.
JOYCE KRAMER
Joyce’s first career, her childhood vision, was teaching high school English in Baltimore’s inner city. After retiring from teaching, Joyce began working for the first major community-based HIV/AIDS organization in Maryland, where she was Director of Volunteer Services and later Director of Development and Public Relations. During her careers in Baltimore, Joyce was politically active and coordinated several campaigns, including a citywide effort to create an elected school board.
In her mid-50s, Joyce began her third career incarnation when she became a self-employed communications consultant on global HIV/AIDS issues and health broadcasting in Washington, DC. She traveled to East Africa to research and write a document on anti-vaccination rumors in three countries.
In addition to her “real” jobs, Joyce works for a limo service, where she gets to drive famous people around. If this book continues to be successful, she will eventually be more famous than her passengers. They will then have to drive her around.
Joyce recently moved from Alexandria, Virginia back to Baltimore where she is starting a career in real estate. She has two children.
JEAN PEELEN
Women’s advocate, civil rights attorney, policy writer, model, actress, radio show host, “Women of a Certain Age” workshop leader. These are the various lives of Jean Peelen.
Jean is author of many Federal policy documents on subjects like the rights of women and girls in sports, the rights of children with disabilities in public schools, the obligations of schools to children with limited English proficiency, the desegregation of public schools, and sexual harassment in schools and colleges. She also published management articles, such as “How to Fire a Federal Employee and Stay Sane.”
Jean left a position as Chief of Staff of a Federal agency to become
an advocate of the power and possibility of women over fifty. At age
59 she became a successful model and commercial actress in New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
In addition, she is one of the national spokeswomen for The Sister Study
(www.sisterstudy.org), a National Institutes of Health study to determine
the causes of breast cancer by studying the sisters of women who have
had the disease.
Jean lives on an island off the west coast of Florida from which she works and brags about her six beautiful granddaughters. As Jean’s main goal in life is to be famous, the increasing size of her family will help.