About Me

Carolyn Bahm, September 2018

I’m just an ordinary middle-aged woman. (“Middle” if you assume I will live to be 110, anyway.) I’m a mother of two daughters (one adult and one nearly so), a wife, a small weekly newspaper editor and a bibliophile.

I grew up in rural Mississippi and now live in suburban West Tennessee. Over the years, I gradually transitioned from being a born-and-bred Southern Baptist to an atheist, and I’m at peace with that realization.

Politically, I’m a super-liberal Democrat, but many of my family and friends are very conservative, as is the community that my newspaper covers. I don’t mind hearing alternative views, and I make sure my paper represents my community, not just me.

I’ve worked at many places, including the starter jobs in high school as a clerk for a convenience store, a tutor and then a waitress the summer before college. During college, I typed papers for money and worked at a local convenience store, running the register and frying the chicken we sold. After college I worked at JCPenney, as a cold-calling ticket salesman for a hockey league, and as a vacuum cleaner salesman (THAT lasted only two weeks). Later, I worked at various newspaper jobs for dailies and weeklies (reporter, feature writer, photographer, darkroom worker, ad salesman, section editor, and editor), a trade magazine editor, a public relations writer/editor, a university publications assistant director, a corporate bid response writer and project manager, knowledge manager for a national sales database, and military contractor as a Navy team’s technical writer. I compiled and edited three non-fictional books while working as a trade magazine editor, too.

My hobbies are knitting, crocheting, reading and browsing through social media to catch up with friends. I love to go to comedy clubs, try new exotic foods, and see my enjoyment reflected in the faces of the people I spend time with. (There I go, boldly ending a sentence with a preposition. A wild-and-crazy grammarian!)

If I had to list some traits that apply to me, I’d say curious, nice, funny, quick-witted, sarcastic and sharp-tongued when I find that necessary. I believe in always being in learning mode; staying still in personal progress is no way to live. I also love puns. (Hey, no one’s perfect.)

I believe in gun control and responsible gun ownership, a woman’s rights to bodily integrity (pro-choice), social safety nets for the basic needs of life (including healthcare, housing, and food), equal marriage rights for people of all sexual identities and orientations, the reality of global climate change, the absolute separation of church and state, beauty at all ages and the inherent goodness of most people.

[This page is still under development. I’ll add more as I think of it, or as people ask for additional information.]

visited 18 states (36%)

visited 8 countries (3.55%)