Writing professionally started early for me as Grace Baranowski. At the age of 12, I placed a personal essay entitled “The Girls are Alright” in Indianapolis Monthly.

Right after graduating from Duke University, I served as Associate Managing Editor at the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. There, I wrote and edited large portions of Giving USA, the almanac for U.S. charitable giving referenced in Congressional proceedings and honored in the National Museum of American History’s “Giving in America” exhibit. Other publications included reports on philanthropy sponsored by national corporations and foundations.

After graduating with my Master’s in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, I wrote affordable housing policy for the State of Georgia. I edited the Qualified Allocation Plan, which is each state’s strategy for allocating Low-Income Housing Tax Credits to affordable housing developers.

I continued working in the community development space, writing for both city government and nonprofits. And then, all of a sudden in 2022, my fiancé was diagnosed with acute leukemia. I realized, in the haze of the ICU and home nursing, I did love writing (and him). I just wanted to write the stories that came from my own heart. As I yolo’d my way out of corporate life, the manuscript I’d written right before he got sick became PROMISE YOU’LL BE HAPPY. My characters still live in that world of academia, policy, and public aspiration, as they work to find their own way toward a happy ending.

P.S. The fiancé is now my husband, and he’s back to his healthy self! We are so grateful to have built a happy ending of our own.