Contact Information:

Debra Traverso
P.O. Box 4842
Hagerstown, MD 21742-4872
240-782-4218

About Debra

"Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Goethe," Representative Men, 1850

I think what Emerson meant is not that we have to amass a bunch of external, pseudo-impressive credentials (as my publishers include below), but rather that we have to develop internal awareness, mesh it with our world, and see what results. Below, you'll find two versions of my results thus far: what my formal bio says (publisher’s version), and my own personal, more insightful version (true version).

Publishers' version

Debra Koontz Traverso, MA, has devoted her life to inspiring and educating people through her writing, speaking and training. She, her articles and her books, have been featured in hundreds of national, regional and on-line publications, as varied as Family Circle, Entrepreneur, Sesame Street Parents, Communication Briefings, Inc. magazine, Bottom Line Business, Wall Street Journal, Home Business Journal, the Boston Globe, Nickelodeon.com, Parents.com, WSJ.com, Lifefiles.com, and Coming2America.com.

Debra helped develop (and served as co-president) of the virtual writing and consulting institute WriteDirections.com which fine-tuned the concept of taking how-to writing classes to writers — both seasoned and aspiring — via telephone. Thousands found success through its content-rich, convenient and real-time, hour-long classes, and through in-person workshops and seminars.

As an instructor and adjunct faculty member at institutions as diverse as Harvard University and her local community college, Debra teaches speech, writing and business communication/marketing. She is a marketing consultant, freelance writer, and author of several books published in eight languages and on audiotape. She is founder of Upside Books, and Vice President of Marketing for One Call, a highly unique telecommunications firm headquartered in Boston.

Debra earned her bachelor's degree in journalism because she loves to write and found people fascinating: "Journalism allowed me to channel my curiosity about people in productive ways; to ask personal questions about what drives them, inspires them, pains them; to look into their souls and help them bring out their depth and their worth."

After working as an editor for several years, Debra yearned to write about what was in her own soul — to share her own knowledge and insights. She began to write part time on projects she chose, while also undergoing a career change from journalism into corporate life, where she discovered a talent for business and marketing.

After holding several corporate positions, earning a master's degree in corporate public relations/marketing from Kent State University, and studying management at The Johns Hopkins University, she managed her own firm for ten years offering crisis communication/management services for corporations and small businesses.

Her clients included NASA (teaching rocket scientists how to speak and write English lest the controversial Cassini spacecraft explode during a fly-by of Earth), Dow Chemical, UPS (advising them prior to the famed Teamsters strike in 1997), Jet Propulsion Lab, and scores of others. Simultaneously, she appeased her need to write by freelancing, selling magazine articles and providing editorial services to companies.

After writing and selling her first book a few years ago, TV Time — a parenting book for frustrated parents and their children who vegetate in front of the television — she realized she had discovered another passion: books. Several books and honors later, she pulled together her expertise and talents in writing, public speaking, and marketing (One Call), to design a life and career she loves, and to help others pursue their goals.

"That old saying about doing work you love so that you'll never have to work a day in your life is true. I love writing and teaching, and having the freedom to structure my life the way I choose."

Debra divides her time between West Virginia and Pennsylvania..

The "true" version

Ah, writing. . . I've been plagued. . . er, blessed. . . with the writing bug since I first wrote a poem in fifth grade which Miss Flamm dubbed "brilliant" — heady feedback for a gawky, pudgy, dull-looking farm kid. I learned then that words have power.

For example, if the bio above sounds impressive, then you've just experienced that power — the power of "mere words." Yeah, you may as well say "mere dynamite." Words have incredible power to impress, anger, appease, honor, transform, titillate, enthrall, motivate or incite readers — it all boils down to how you say it, what you leave out, and what you put in.

When newcomers read my bio they seem to be (or at least they act—thanks!) impressed, mostly because of what's put in. By way of example, let me tell you more about what's been left out of the above bio.

• Secretly, I had wanted to be a famous and glamorous (and, of course, wealthy) singer and songwriter, but given that I can't sing that well and never looked good in leather pants, I decided I better shop for a more realistic career.

• When I attended college, I was totally clueless about life, having grown up on a sheltered little dairy farm in nowhere, Pennsylvania. And, to be honest, I'm not sure I have any more insight today than I did then. . . sure, the focus has changed (thank goodness) but I still have as many questions as I had then.

• My most vivid memories of college life are not the career and life decisions I made, but rather the unfortunate decisions I made about hair, fashion and some of the men I dated.

• George Moore said that a man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. He must have been studying my life. God bless America.

• It took me longer than I care to admit to stop listening to "they." You, see, "they" steered me off my true navigational course and inappropriately into corporate life, into consulting, into living the life "they" said was required to be a success. "They" said that, to be taken seriously, I should get my master's degree, move into the adminisphere in the corporate world, suck up to bigwigs (the practice of assmosis), make lots of money, do lots of travel, and buy lots of things. So I did. All those things. What "they" didn't tell me, however, was that in return, I'd lose the assets of peace and a sense of self. Being taken seriously pales in comparison to these precious assets.

• I am glad that I earned a degree in journalism because it taught me to write to express, not to impress — a trait that has served me well. Funny, however, the moment I left journalism, I began the process of becoming one of the media's prime cynics.

• My first book, TV Time, didn't evolve from any great insights or discoveries I made along the way. I had no great epiphanies; no angels appeared to me; and I wasn't merely at the right place at the right time. Instead, the book grew from a middle-of-the-night experience in which my then three-year-old son, murmuring in his sleep, did not say, "Mommy, I love you," but rather, "Mommy, I want to see Barney." I thank God for both my son and the new perspectives he's given me.

• I stopped doing book signings because I just didn't have the knowledge required to be successful at it. You see, for every one person who asks you about your book, you have at least five who will ask where the bathroom is or what time the bookstore closes. I always failed to remember to find out in advance.

• I never thought I would join a business again until I discovered One Call. In my quest to overcome my phobia about all things high-tech, I discovered One Call's Mobile Manager service. It is quintessentially the best marketing tool I've ever seen for mobile professionals and freelancers. I knew instantly I had to become a part of it.

• I do believe that what we dwell on, we become; therefore, I'm not much of a TV watcher. Aside from old reruns of The Andy Griffith show, I don't find much redeeming programming on TV. Most of the shows are so negative in that they involve diminishing or destroying a human being. That's another reason I walked away from "popular" journalism; the news mantra "If it bleeds, it leads," never sat right with me. Despair is not worth anyone's time.

• In my opinion (and that's the only opinion that matters here because this is my site) good journalism involves researching, uncovering and discovering things, and pulling them together into new form. It also involves finding reliable sources, and checking everything twice. Writers: trust your instinct, but check your facts. If your mother says she loves you, check it.

• Writers, journalists: shoot high. Be more than just a passive observer. Strive to be a chronicler and vigilant witness to the events around us. Solve problems. Answer questions. Why did none of us ever uncover why the professor on Gilligan's Island could not fix that dang hole in the boat? I mean, he could make two-way radios out of coconuts!

• Middle age, with its memory lapses, has been the perfect time for me to leave business and concentrate on writing because writing forces you to, well, write things down. You see, I have a track record of losing things such as sanity, objectivity, and my svelte figure, not to mention that I've littered a significant portion of Maryland with coffee cups forgotten on the roof of my car.

• I always hated that I walked in the middle on just about every issue. Then I learned that if you push hard enough against any extreme, you end up at its opposite. Better not to be an extremist on any issue. My one exception is politics. Following 9/11, I fell on the conservative side and have been entrenched there ever sense.

• Speaking of 9/11, I learned more than my share of lessons that day. Besides learning (or being reminded) how important family, friends and country are, that evil truly does exist, and that we've taken tolerance too far in this country, I learned not to put too much hope into one book. On 9/11 my book, The Small Business Owner's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep, was launched to the news media via 970 faxed news releases at 8 a.m. Needless to say, one hour later the releases were buried under the bigger news of the day. Then, to add insult to injury, my publisher put a ban on publicity for months; you see, the book is about how small businesses can weather crisis situations. The publisher did not want to appear to be taking advantage of a bad situation. Lesson: write to make your soul happy, not to make your purse bulge, because your plans may go awry.

• Other than my son, my proudest accomplishment is knowing how to milk a cow. How many people know how to milk a cow these days?

• One day I realized that all the good advice I'd ever gotten had come from optimists. That's the day I joined their ranks.

• What would I be doing if I wasn't writing and marketing? Without a doubt I would be designing and decorating. It took me a long time to learn that I have to be creative most of the time or I'm not happy. As for manual labor, intellectual accomplishments, corporate climbs, and academic callings — been there, done that. I just want to be creative from now on.

To the top