More About Pat
Pat was born the elder of two daughters to Charlie D. and Dorene Bailey Spears in rural North Florida. She is a sixth generation Floridian and jokes that an endangered species designation may be in her future. As early as 1828, her Florida pioneer ancestors carved homes, cultivated fields and drove Spanish cattle into the wild and formidable land that became Florida. Her male ancestors, both paternal and maternal, voted in Florida’s Statehood election in 1845. The descendants of these pioneers became farmers, lumbermen, merchants, and local politicians. After WW II, her father sought employment off the family farm, and moved his young family to Port St. Joe, FL where Pat attended public schools. From time to time she has followed her wanderer’s lust for sights and sounds of other locales, only to return to her roots in North Florida.
Education:
B.S. Major: Social Studies Education, Florida State University
M.S. Major: Social Studies Education; Minor: Political Science, Florida State University
Ph.D. Major: Social Studies Education; Minor: Sociology, Florida State University
Seminars, Workshops and Conferences:
- Graduate and Undergraduate Writing Seminars at Florida State University with Janet Burroway and the late Gerald Stern
- UCLA Extension Writers’ Program (on-line) with Caroline Leavitt
- University of Iowa Summer Writers Workshop with Robley Wilson
- Flight of the Mind Conference with Judith Barrington
- St. Augustine Writing Below Sea-Level Conference with Dorothy Allison and Connie May Fowler