From Columbia to Career to Fiction

July 16, 2026. Columbia graduates interested in writing fiction come to CFF from varied careers. They enrich our workshops with diverse perspectives as readers and writers. Many come to our workshops with long histories as writers – of stories with news at the top, of academic arguments filled with long sentences, of articles ladened with scientific and legal jargon. When they bring all their  extensive career experience to fiction, CFF helps them make the turn. We asked three of our members about this transition: Seth Ribner, attorney; Margie Winslow, geologist and professor, and Ann Lally, advertising executive. Their bottom line: CFF workshops help.

Seth Ribner

I graduated from Columbia Law School in 1982. After a clerkship for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, I had a long career practicing as a litigator in New York and Los Angeles with two major law firms. I worked on a variety of corporate disputes from hostile takeover litigation in the 1980s to insurance coverage lawsuits, including the property insurance case arising from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, to matters stemming from the California energy crisis.

Segueing into creative writing was a natural based on my professional and academic interests. At first, I carved out hours to write at night and on weekends. I completed the early drafts of a novel while I was still practicing. By finishing a long-form story, I proved to myself that I could do it, and that I enjoyed the writing and rewriting process enough to pursue a second career as a novelist. At that point, I took several novel writing workshops at UCLA Extension and would recommend similar instructor-led classes for writers starting out.

I find that my work as an attorney and the personalities I met while in practice inform my writing even when I am addressing subjects far afield from my own experience. For example, my current project is a pirate story that interweaves plot lines involving modern day New York buccaneers and those from early eighteenth-century colonial New York.

I am a frequent contributor to the CFF Saturday workshop. The workshopped pieces are consistently good and the comments that I receive on my own submissions are helpful. Most of all, I like CFF’s collegiality and the opportunity to connect with other writers as we pursue our respective paths to publication.

Margaret (Margie) Winslow

I graduated from Columbia with a BS ‘73, GSAS MS ’75, MPhil ’76, and PhD 1979 in Geological Sciences. My thesis project was to map the rock exposures around the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego. My (mis)adventures as a young woman in a male-dominated field led to travel around the world and to two memoirs.  My adventures with a white donkey led to another in 2018.

I taught geology at CUNY, specializing in earthquake hazards and geoarchaeology and retired as Professor Emerita in 2012.

I had started to write fictional pieces loosely based on my work in remote regions in 2012 when a friend invited me to join CFF. I didn’t become a regular participant until 2015. 

A longtime fan of mysteries (fiction and non-fiction) set in remote regions, I decided to set my first novel in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska where I had worked for seven summers, partly with an Aleut elder. During my research for what would become Cradle of Storms, I came across a little-known but true story from WW II in the Aleutians during which an entire Indigenous village disappeared. The novel has been shortlisted by both the Crime Writers Association for its Debut Dagger award and Historical Novel Society in the Historical Mystery category.

With the incisive feedback and patient support from other CFF writers, I’ve gradually transitioned from the terse style of non-fiction to the complex and fluid requirements of novel-writing.  I’m currently writing a sequel set in the Aleutians. It, too, is loosely based on a true story, this one of an archaeological expedition during which the leader disappears.

Ann Lally

I completed Columbia’s Graduate School of Business Master's Degree Program for Executives, in 1985. The program no longer exists. In 1988, I moved to Atlanta as an advertising professional at large international agencies including Ogilvy, working with top hospitality brands and wonderful clients, whose hotels were the venues for high stakes, confidential business meetings. 

Inspired, I explored a story idea that takes place in a luxury hotel. The plot involves hotel operations and the people who place a high value on pleasing others. The subplot uses the hotel for a tale about large transactions and national security, a world I knew growing up. The idea became 200 words here and there in a journal and is now a commercial fiction reality, in its final chapters.

CFF is flexible when life's other demands, like a day job, or caring for an aging parent, or contracted employment, temporarily derail my writing. The feedback and suggestions are excellent. 

The program integrates trends in publishing and genres, and the collaborative workshops fuel my determination to finish. Generous and supportive, participants are also eager to help me offline, if needed, especially efforts to balance dialogue and narrative. Participants are open-minded and helpful across genres.

I’d encourage anyone in the Columbia community with fiction goals to join us! My goal is to finish my project by the end of 2026.