From the Albany Democrat Herald by Alex Paul March 14, 2014 7:15 am • Author Pamela Koefoed said growing up with an alcohol-addicted mother was like “trying to survive in a river of crocodiles.” Had Koefoed and her two siblings been fortunate enough to have had CASA mentors, their childhoods would have been much brighter and far less traumatic, she told guests at the seventh annual Court Appointed Special Advocates fundraising luncheon, Thursday held at the Linn County Fair

What do dangerous chlorine gas, an exploding house, and a knife attack mean to you? Hopefully nothing. But for me, these were each experiences that I had growing up with my alcohol-addicted mother. Living with her was like trying to survive in a river of crocodiles. My life was often in danger and it’s a wonder that I wasn’t eaten alive. I survived, obviously, but there’s something else–I overcame. I’m here to give hope and help to the hurting through my creative writing styl

Today I got up eager to begin rewriting the epilogue of my new book, JoyRide. I wrote until I was called away from the writing. When I returned, I found that all the work that I put into the revised epilogue had disappeared. I searched the computer’s files, thinking it may have gotten misplaced. (Computers do the darndest things, sometimes.) But it wasn’t anywhere. Three hours of writing had vanished. Once, I watched an ant as it moved a dead moth toward its hole in the groun

My stomach ached with hunger. Mother left my eleven-year-old sister Robin and me home alone for several days without food. The cupboards were bare. The refrigerator had a half empty jug of Gallo and some dried out celery in a produce drawer but that was all. Panhandling wasn’t something I ever imagined for myself. I was nine-years-old, almost fearless, and absolutely lacking in begging skills. I stationed myself outside the neighborhood grocery store, and waited beside the au

What was I thinking? Where did I get the romantic notion about the writer’s life? Years ago, in my mind’s eye I saw an author seated in a leather office chair at her mahogany desk. Surrounded on two sides by floor to ceiling bookcases, she fashioned prose from her private room where nothing interfered with the creative flow, which came to her almost vicariously. After writing two books, I can tell you this—I was deluded. My idea of an author’s life was as far fetched as they