Biography
of Mary Ann Siegel
Freelance copywriter and Founder of
Seagull Writing, www.seagullwriting.com
After
graduating from Connecticut College with a B.A. in Religion,
I joined the staffs of Life and National
Geographic magazines in their Picture Libraries.
A
career in community service, fundraising and leadership
development followed in which I held campaign or board
leadership positions with the following organizations:
Spelman College, Connecticut College, Leadership Atlanta,
the North Carolina School for Outward Bound, the Atlanta
Committee for the Olympic Games, the United Way of Metro
Atlanta, the Salvation Army, the YWCA and the Urban
Training Organization of Atlanta.
I
turned my community building knowledge into an online
library of fund-raising and leadership development resource
materials by writing and editing the ‘How To Guides’
for FundraisingINFO.com. This web content was developed
for subscribers of the fund-raising consulting service,
appearing as self-help articles about how to raise funds,
recruit and lead boards, manage special events, engage
in stewardship to donors and volunteers, and anticipate
emerging technology issues.
Other industries have called me as well: photography,
where I did portrait freelancing; education where I
tutored elementary school children in reading and writing
in New York and Atlanta, most recently with Communities
in Schools; executive search where I recruited call
center managers; and health care where I managed a dental
office. Each opened up a new world - issues facing children,
customer service, and technology - proving that a writer
truly benefits from a breadth of life experiences.
My feature and technical articles have been published
in Fundraising Management and Nonprofit
World magazines, Case Currents, and publications
of Hospice Atlanta and the Texas Association of Nonprofit
Organizations.
I am honored to have been a member of the Leadership
Atlanta class of 1994 and to have received the Agnes
Berkeley Leahy award from Connecticut College. I have
held many exciting jobs and at the top of this list
was serving as Envoy to the Micronesian nation of Nauru
during the 1996 Olympic Games. But the event I am proudest
of, in addition to my three wonderful children, is having
helped to initiate and lead a movement to end discrimination
in faculty hiring at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta,
Georgia. After a three-year battle, we were successful
in overturning the discriminatory policy.
My goals for the future are to make life better for
those in need, particularly children and the homeless.
My ‘other career’ is writing children’s
fiction.
I
can be reached at maryann@seagullwriting.com
