Fun Facts!

• I’m a homeschooling Mom to three kids. Why homeschooling? It allows us to have a more flexible lifestyle! We love the Brave Writer curriculum, and also highly recommend Oh Freedom! history from Woke Homeschooling.

• I love to hike, bike and camp, but haven’t done it as much in the past few years. Is it because our anxious dog tore a hole in the tent trying to escape in the middle of the night? Possibly. Because one of our mountain biking adventures left my son and I lost on a trail which lead to me trying to carry his scared self on my shoulders while riding his tiny bike, hoping the aforementioned anxious pup would sled dog us to safety? Maybe.

• I’m a little clumsy and seem to easily create awkward situations. See that bandage on my arm in the picture above? Yeah, that’s because I tried to save a kitten from a tree the DAY BEFORE I flew to New York for the festival and fell, breaking my foot and losing all the skin on that arm in the process. But hey, it was a great icebreaker in NYC!

• I am a huge advocate for mental health awareness and ending the stigma around these issues. I believe so much in the power of talking openly about our own experiences to both expand other’s understanding as well as to share tools. As someone with a late-life diagnosis of ADHD, anxiety, depression and a sensory processing disorder, I would not be writing this without the help of therapy, medication and the support and collaboration from others who deal with the same.

• My first favorite author was R.L. Stine, and because we shared similar initials I would sign my elementary school stories as R.L. Hill because it made me feel more like an official writer. It makes me so happy that one of my daughters is also a Goosebumps fan!

Becky McLaughlin studied performance, stage management, and theatre management at both Virginia Commonwealth University and UNC-Greensboro.

While writing has always been a beloved hobby, she only began writing plays after reconnecting with the local theatre community. From her first trio of short plays, she submitted Stay for Dinner to the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival and was not only granted a spot in the top 30 playwrights and the opportunity for her work to be performed in NYC, but was also one of the six finalists whose works were published from the 2019 festival.

Becky is currently producing her first original podcast, The Witch in the Woods, which will premiere in August of 2021. She is also querying a middle grade fantasy novel as well as her first full length play.