author ~ editor ~ coach
Dana
Tye Rally
about
My story
I wanted to become a writer when I grew up but instead became a newspaper journalist, a freelance magazine writer, a mother, a divorcee, and then a corporate editor and stepmother of a blended family. When I wrote, it was at the behest of others. I suspected dreams might only happen in my sleep.
What I didn’t know was that I was always a writer, that it was only up to me to declare myself one. I am, therefore, at long last, a writer. In 2017, when my children were grown, I began working on a novel. And then, on a trip to Colombia in February 2019, I stayed in an airless hotel room with two beds and four women, and I couldn’t sleep. Memories of my childhood—the way my father used words to hurt others and himself—came tumbling out the next morning in the form of a long essay. That essay became the basis for “The Invisible Man,” in the anthology, True Stories, Volume II, and for my memoir-in-progress, Lessons in Reverse.
publications
True Stories II
My two sisters and I were born into privilege, the daughters of a successful physician and a clever and devoted mother. But all is rarely as it seems. This story features early memories of my painful and destructive relationship with my father—a misogynist and narcissist who struggled behind-the-scenes with depression, anxiety, and addiction.
blog
’Struth
Ode to a big-hearted husband
When it comes to my health, I’ve relied on my good instincts first. This stubborn notion probably emerged shortly after birth, once I figured out my mom kept all the superpowers. I knew that any menace barrelling through her three daughters’ lives had to wheedle its...
A soccer mom’s lament
Have you ever peered out your window one morning and thought the world got turned on its side while you were sleeping? You see familiar objects. But something’s shifted in the landscape and you’re not sure what. Like living inside a giant snow globe and waking up to...
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