Margery P Bayne
Bio
Margery Bayne is a librarian by day and a writer by night from Baltimore, Maryland -- a published short story writer and an aspiring novelist. More about her and her writing can be found at www.margerybayne.com and on Medium @margerybayne.
Stories (13/0)
Librarians Aren’t Just Old Ladies With Glasses and Cardigans Anymore: A Rant
I’ve seen the notion, with some variation on the wording, that ‘librarians aren’t just old ladies with glasses and cardigans who shush you anymore’ floating around the library world for a few years now. I get the mostly good intention behind it, but boy does it ruffle my feathers.
By Margery P Bayneabout a year ago in Confessions
Write More with a SMART Goal
So you want to write more. You want to write more regularly, write a higher word count, finish a big project, or form a writing habit. While it is a noble ambition that you perhaps resolve to do every new year or even the start of every month, it is just as easy to slip up and fail.
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Lifehack
Five Things I Learned About Storytelling From Judging My First Writing Contest
Background: In 2017, I entered a Maryland-based writing contest and ultimately had my short story submission “The Pawn Shop of Intangible Things” place second. It was a pretty amazing experience that has involved an awards ceremony, a nice check, and free admission to a sci-fi writing conference where I read my story on a panel. Last but not least of all the honors, I was asked to be a judge for the 2018 contest.
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Journal
The Not-So-Hidden-Secrets of Public Libraries for Booklovers
Public libraries are amazing institutions. You can check out books, use computers, and just visit and hang out, all completely for free. But many book lovers out there are not using their local libraries to their full potential.
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Education
How To Read Like a Librarian
One of the responsibilities of your public-serving librarians is a thing called ‘readers’ advisory.’ Unlike informational or reference questions, readers’ advisory is for pleasure reading, whether fiction or nonfiction. It is our fancy library terminology for when a customer comes up to the desk and says, ‘Can you recommend a book?’
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Education
Top Five Things I Learned About Writing Short Stories from Getting a Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing
How does the joke go? Who’s got two thumbs and an undergraduate degree in creative writing? This gal! So you do not have to spend [amount redacted]and four years of your life doing the same, here are the biggest lessons I learned about writing effective short stories from my time sweating bullets in workshop classes (that harrowing thing where everyone critiques your story to shreds as you sit there and just take it) and listening to too many guys play The Wall on acoustic guitar (a college freshman rite of passage for many, I’m sure)…
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Journal
- Top Story - November 2021
I Took on Student Debt to Get a Degree in Creative Writing; Here’s Why I Don’t Regret ItTop Story - November 2021
Guess who’s the poster child for a millennial who got a “useless” humanities degree and then graduated into an economic depression only to be underemployed for the next several years that followed?
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Confessions
The Life-Changing Magic of ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’
Eight years ago I used Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up as a guide for cleaning out and organizing my childhood bedroom. I was a year out of college and still living in my parents’ house, and have a lifetime worth of stuff stuffed into that room: knickknacks and old toys making each year of childhood, magazine cut-outs of favorite celebrities from the teenage years, more books than could fit on my bookshelves, clothes old and new, and everything my sister left behind when she moved out.
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Lifehack
Tiptoeing Into Skincare
So you watch one of those Glamour or Vogue celebrity “Get Ready With Me” Youtube videos in which a beautiful celebrity has a 26 step morning face routine, and it is overwhelming. How much and what products should you use? How expensive is buying them all going to be?
By Margery P Bayne2 years ago in Blush
