When I tell people I’m an English major, the response is usually, “What do you want to do, teach?” No, I want to write. It’s like saying: I’m going to be a rock star or an actor. Then they give me a sympathetic nod.
Shortly after I took the job of Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oak Leaf Newspaper, I had the pleasure of meeting a former Oak Leaf writer with a successful career as a journalist and author. So there—it can be done.
Julia Park Tracey met me at the benches near the Santa Rosa Junior College Bookstore and told me how she discovered she wanted to be a writer. “I was randomly passing a friend of mine, over there,” she pointed across the courtyard, “ and she said, ‘I’m on the Oak Leaf.’”
Tracey thought that sounded like fun, so she joined the paper as a staff writer in the fall semester of 1981. She was on staff for three out of her four years at SRJC. The adviser for the paper was Pulitzer Prize winner, Kathy Mitchell.
“She had been in the trenches, so she whipped us into shape,” Tracey said.
At that time, there were no computers. The newsroom was an office filled with typewriters, light tables, a wax roller, X-Acto knives, blue pencils and a photo reproduction wheel. Everything was printed from film, which makes me feel petty for complaining about how tedious and time-consuming production is now.
Tracey became the founding editor of The Alameda Sun community newspaper and later its publisher, one of fewer than 85 female newspaper publishers in California at that time. She was also associate editor at “Alameda” and “Oakland” magazines and co-editor at “The East Bay Monthly.” She was founder of the East Bay literary fair, “Alameda Literati,” winning grants for its support, and editor of the literary magazine, “Red Hills Review.”
More recently, Tracey published a novel, “Tongues of Angels” in 2002 and a book of poems, “Amaryllis: Collected Poems,” in 2009.
In 2011 at age 101, Tracey’s great aunt, Doris Louise Bailey Murphy passed away and left Tracey her box of diaries dating back to the mid-1920’s.
“I knew her intimately as my dear aunt—but I didn’t know her at all, not like this,” Tracey said. “It was great to kind of meet her all over again.”
Tracey shared pieces of Doris’ diary on Facebook. After encountering overwhelming interest from her friends, she decided to publish “I’ve Got Some Lovin’ to Do: The Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen.”
In her diary, Doris is a young vibrant and romantic girl seeking true love in the 1920’s.
“Her slang is so funny,” Tracey said. “It’s sort of corny and charming.”
The book is a selection of entries that cover about a year and a half of Doris’ life, from 1925-26. Doris kept a diary well into her nineties, so there is plenty more where that came from.
“Lovin” is available on Amazon.com, as well as at your local bookstore upon request. Tracey will be signing books at 7 p.m. Nov. 15 at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma.
