LONGMEADOW – Former Reminder Publishing freelancer, Springfield native and current Longmeadow resident Christine White has recently published a book of personal essays titled, “Are We There Yet? Essays from My Life.”

White was born and raised in Springfield, and after living away from the area for 15 years, she moved back to Longmeadow where she has resided for the past 30 years. During her time away from Western Massachusetts, she worked in Boston for state government.

When White became a stay-at-home mom she decided she wanted to “try her hand” at a couple of things – one being writing. When she realized that she wanted guidance, she joined a weekly writing workshop in Amherst. White credits the workshop as what helped her gain confidence and improve as a writer.

“As my children got older, I eventually went to work for a few years in a law office, but when I left there I decided to take a chance on writing,” White told Reminder Publishing. At 50 years old, White applied for an internship at The Reminder and got the job. After she spent three months as an intern, she was hired to cover news in Longmeadow as a freelancer for five years. After her time at The Reminder, The Republican hired White and she continued to report on Longmeadow news, except her articles were limited to feature stories.

“After a few years [at The Republican] I decided I wanted to try writing occasional columns as well as my feature articles, and was given the chance to do that by my editor,” White explained. “So for about the last 15 years, I’ve been writing columns as well as articles. More recently, as I’ve improved, I guess, and I’ve been willing to get more personal, my columns have developed a following.”

White’s columns in The Republican as well as occasional articles still continue today on a freelance basis.

Roughly a year ago a small publishing house in Longmeadow approached White and asked if they could collect her columns to compile into a book. At first, White turned the offer down.

“But they persisted, and as I continued to be stopped in the grocery store and other venues in town by people, both friends and strangers who told me how much they enjoyed my columns, I decided to take the publisher up on her offer,” White said.

The book is compiled of White’s personal essays that range from pet peeves of hers, family portraits, observations she has made when taking walks around her neighborhood, to her love of the symphony, the game of bridge, and to climate change.

“In general, they are generated by my daily life experiences, both past and present. What I always strive to do, however, is draw some conclusion, a bit of wisdom, from what I’ve observed or experienced,” she said.

“Are We There Yet? Essays from My Life,” is a 155-page book of “short and to the point” essays – White states, “some will make you laugh and some will make you cry.”

“This is a little book, 155 pages,” she said. “But I hope it packs a punch.”

For those interested in the process of publishing, White explained that it took her roughly one year from start to finish. “But remember, all of these columns had been written and published in The Republican,” White said. “I was simply gathering them together, so there was very little editing.”

White enjoyed the hands-on aspect of publishing through working directly with the publisher, deciding on layout, titles for individual essays, formatting, and choosing photographs that her husband Cory took to accompany some of the essays.

“My least favorite part, I guess, was that after seeing how some of the formatting decisions we made turned out, we had to rethink those decisions and come up with a new format or design and try to envision what it would look like. It took us a while to get a product that everyone loved the look of, but I think we have achieved that,” she said.

When asked if she thought she might start working on book number two, White said she doubted there was another one on the horizon considering it has taken her 15 years to write enough essays to fill one book. “But I do continue to write columns for the paper, and at this point have no plans to stop.” White added, “And since I never expected to publish one book, you never know.”

White will be having a book signing at the Storrs Library in Longmeadow, located at 693 Longmeadow St., on Sept. 11. For more information on the signing, go to http://www.longmeadowlibrary.org

“Are We There Yet? Essays from My Life” can be purchased in paperback on Amazon for $9.95 or for kindle for $5.69.