He’s 6’1″, wears a black Drover coat and sports a black oilskin cowboy hat. But he lives hundreds of miles from anywhere that could be described as “open country.”
“The Cowboy” is my affectionate name for my husband, Mickey. He also is the copy editor for Maguire Copywriting. And he loves the outdoors. He’s engaged in just about every outdoor pursuit known to man.
Mickey is the one who encouraged me to pursue writing. Even back in our “courtin’ days,” he said he was fairly certain that one way or the other, I’d write for a living someday. He was right. (He loves it when I say that.)
We connected in the summer of 2001 and exchanged 77 emails before we met in person. I was living in Cincinnati at the time and he was in Columbus. We met (much to my chagrin) on an online Christian singles chat board. I wasn’t taking the chat board seriously, but Mickey caught my eye, we connected… and the rest, as they say, is history.
Over the years, this polymath of mine has tried his hand (and succeeded) at: guitar playing, singing, writing songs, photography, writing articles and a book on photography, calligraphy, scrimshaw, building black-powder rifles, fly-tying, fly-fishing (and building rods), playing the ukulele, starting Ukulele Player Magazine, pen and ink illustration, watercolor painting, poetry, authoring several eBooks, and is well-versed in computer issues (he was editor-in-chief of a computer magazine at one time) and can troubleshoot like he’s Bill Gates’ son. (Don’t tell him that, though. He’d hate to be linked to Gates. IT folks will understand.)
If you’d like to take a gander at his creation, Ukulele Player Magazine, click away. This is an archive of past issues since Mickey retired the publication in 2018.
Mickey produced this online-only magazine for over five years. Even in the midst of a cancer scare (and surgery), he kept on ticking, delighting the ukulele community with his collection of music and instrument reviews, interviews, and the best online directory of ukulele groups both in the U.S. and abroad.
The Cowboy, though, is pretty thorough when checking my work and making suggestions. We’ve had a few… um… lively discussions about some copy, but mostly I realize he’s right and I adjust my sails accordingly. We’re a good team. I get to jabber on endlessly in my copy and he gets to tell me when I’ve gone off the rails.
All in all, it makes for fun dinner conversation and he always makes sure to soothe my bruised ego by telling me how beautiful I look.
After all, don’t cowboys know best how to handle a feisty filly?
Good thing he knows how to vacuum, too.
P.S. If you’re a cracker-jack copy editor, yourself, and saw several glaring errors in the above copy, know that The Cowboy didn’t even catch a glimpse of any of it. He’ll likely be embarrassed that I said such things, but every word is true. Even if it was a bit wordy.