Hey, Get a Job! came about because I needed a lesson plan. When I went searching for lessons on anything related to landing and keeping a first job, I found nothing suitable for teens. I went to employers who hire kids, and I took the information out there for adults and made it consumable for teens. When I finished, I realized I had written more than a lesson plan. I wrote a book.
Hey, Back Off! was written by me and a high school counselor, Phyllis Hendrickson, who also happens to be my mom. There are a plethora of books and programs out there about teen bullying and harassment, but we felt like there weren’t any that really taught students about what harassment is, the laws surrounding harassment, and the personality traits that influence someone to become a harasser, a victim, or have the ability to stay above it all.
By far my longest and most arduous project is my memoir, A Backpack, a Eurorail Pass, and Some Serious Baggage . Travelers, like writers, believe in the
power of setting. Particularly when they are twenty-two. I thought of traveling Europe with two close friends as an escape from my conservative Mormon upbringing, and the pressures of conforming to a religion I did not believe in. I discovered that freedom means more than being worldly, having a guilt free good time, and finding the perfect pint of ale.
A Teen Guide for getting and Keeping a job
Total cost of $3.50 includes:
A Personality Approach to Stopping Teen Harassment
Total cost of $3.50 includes:
Travelers, like writers, believe in the power of setting. Jen thinks of traveling Europe with fellow Mormon, Jeanne, and an Alaska Native named Bert, as an escape from her conservative upbringing and the pressures of conforming to a religion she does not believe in. The change of setting and culture allows Jen to have a raucous, guilt-free experience with her boisterous, silly, and hilarious friends.
The journey also propels the twenty-two-year-old women into confronting the baggage they carried including grief, sexuality, and for Jen, the abuses of an uncle and a powerful, patriarchal religion. ‘A Backpack, a Eurorail Pass, and Some Serious Baggage’ is an honest, sometimes humorous, account of a young woman’s struggle to get to a place where she can run unabashedly through the pages of her story.