About

As a child, I loved reading, writing, and history. My favorite authors included Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock, and Agatha Christie. I also enjoyed reading non-fiction books at an early age. I was often called to the table for dinner numerous times because I always wanted to finish a paragraph, page, or chapter in the book I was reading. I began writing stories as a child, then read them to my mother. I wish I had those early creations, but don’t know what happened to them.

When in school, I wanted to be a writer and/or an on-site action news reporter. Instead, I followed my mother’s recommendation and took the “respectable” route of becoming a secretary. Although not a news reporter, my original desire to be a writer has become a reality in my adult life.

When my children were young, I began writing “Grogan Gossip,” a newsletter about our family’s activities. I originally mailed them to friends and family on a monthly basis. As my children got older, the frequency lessened into what is now a Christmas newsletter I send instead of Christmas cards. It is laid out in newsletter format with articles and photographs. With the exception of the very first “Grogan Gossip,” I have copies of every letter in a notebook. It serves as a memorial to the lives of my children growing up and my ongoing life.

My passion for writing drew me to take a course at the Institute of Children’s Literature on writing magazine articles for children. My own children were young at the time, and life got in the way, so I never started writing articles for publication. After moving to St. Clair, Michigan, in 2004, I joined the St. Clair County Family History Group and served as newsletter editor of Blue Water Family Backgrounds from 2009 to 2018.

I started my personal blog, “Life is a Melting Pot,” around 2014. I decided on that name because I did not want to lock myself into writing about one particular theme. The blog covers anything that strikes me at the time but primarily follows the memoir genre. Over the years, subjects include grandchildren, our struggle trying to adopt our grandchildren, travel, and anything else that inspires me.

In 2019 I quit my full-time job as a paralegal and began living and traveling full-time in a motor home. I ghostwrite business blogs for businesses throughout the world, but mainly in the U.S.  I am a member of the Rochester Writers and Detroit Working Writers in Michigan and have begun attending Write on the Edge, a writer’s group in Yuma, Arizona, where I winter.  I write a genealogy column, Who Am I?, for The Lakeshore Guardian in Michigan. I was an opinion columnist for the Port Huron Times Herald in Michigan until community columnists were no longer used. I have published articles and photographs in the PSA Travel Journal, RVLiving Magazine, and The Freshwater Reporter.  I am currently working on a book about Child Protective Services taking my grandchildren, and my husband and I attempted to adopt them, but instead, they were split apart and adopted out to strangers.

I was an active member of the Blue Water Shutterbug Camera Club in Port Huron, Michigan, from 2003 until the club dissolved in 2022. My photographs are often seen in my blogs. I also sell my photographs on Pixels.com and Fine Art America. My partner, Paul Cannon, and I have a YouTube Channel, Rolling Thru North America, Travel with US!, that includes videos and photographs taken on our travels as we travel North America in a 35-foot motor home and venture off-road trails in our Jeep.

I invite you to check out my  Who Am I? column in The Lakeshore Guardian. I also invite you to visit my Grace Grogan, Write Facebook page and my photography Facebook page, Time Goes By Photography. You may also view my photography by visiting my Fine Art America Page and the Fine Art America page of my deceased husband, Ronald Grogan.