Sarah Becking

Author

My first paid job after focusing on my children for fifteen years, was leading discussions of classic works of literature about returning home from war. We lived in Army housing, and I read The Odyssey for the first time. Veterans, civilians, and military spouses met weekly for a couple of months to read and talk. I’ll never forget hearing my friend, an Army veteran who’d weathered chemical alarms in the Gulf War, read Dulce et Decorum Est to our group.

The stories stayed with me, and I answered a call by the local newspaper for reader columnists. I wrote several columns about life as a military spouse, new to the area and finding ways to feel at home. Then of course, we moved. I took a job in my field, as a reference librarian in a public library. And another as an aquatics instructor, reviving my youthful love of swimming.

But I couldn’t leave the words in the books. In 2024, I decided to write a novel. I took a creative writing class in 2025, and have completed the manuscript.

I love being surrounded by plants. Seven years ago, my life list of home addresses topped out at twenty-three. I grew up in Pittsburgh and now live with my husband and cats in central Pennsylvania. We have two grown daughters.