Beth Szillagyi has
been a sheet metal worker for over twenty years, and
has been writing ever since she learned how. She won
several writing contests in highschool and college,
and spent five years as a journalist in the Army National
Guard. Her 'pet' magazine when she started in the construction
business was Tradeswomen Magazine, where she
published ten stories about being the lone woman amongst
a sea of men. (Note: The magazine is now, unfortunately,
out of print, but back issues are still available on
the Internet, of course!)
The short, non-fiction version of "Hey, Lady!"
was first published in Tradeswomen Magazine in the early
1980s. It later found its way to "Hard-Hatted Women,"
an anthology published by Seal Press in 1988, and finally
to Cosmopolitan Magazine in September 1991. She had
written the full-length version of the story during
this time in first person format. When a publisher suggested
the story would sound better in third person as fiction,
she changed it again, and all of this with one of those
ancient IBM Selectrics! Sheesh! :-)
Beth lives and plays in Central Illinois with her husband
and best friend, Bob, who is also a construction worker,
and is most happy when writing 'Val' stories, fishing,
and tending to her flowers. She is currently at work
on her second novel about Val's adventures as a journeywoman
and her misadventures as a wicked step-mother, and a
third one about a forty-something computer dinosaur
jumping into the computer age with both number nines.
fiction
writers writing software
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