Student Spotlight: Gretchen Dubit
We’re so excited to highlight one of our favorite clients and friends this month, Gretchen Dubit! Did you know Gretchen is a novelist and has recently published her first memoir Under the Oak Tree?
We asked Gretchen to tell us a little bit about herself, her writing and her love of Pilates. And if you need a good book to read this summer we’ll have copies of Under the Oak Tree for purchase at the studio!
I have always loved to write. In 1979 at age 13 I was a staff writer for my junior high magazine called Rebound. My best friend in high school was a girl named Rhonda who grew up to become the owner of Pilates Durango. I came to Pilates about three years ago to see what her life’s work is about and became hooked instantly. Pilates Durango is one of the few places I have been during Covid since being relegated to teaching online and I love Rhonda’s morning Pilate class, Chloe’s Barre class, and Melissa’s Jumpboard class. I love Pilates Durango and the people I work out with are warm and welcoming. It feels like a studio full of friends!
The written word always came easily to me and I wrote whenever I could. I dreamed of writing for a big magazine when I graduated from college in 1988 with a Bachelor’s in English from Trinity College and planned to move back to New York where I grew up. But I fell in love with a boy and we moved West in 1989 landing in Durango. I went back to school at Fort Lewis College to get my Teacher Certification to teach Secondary English and worked for several years as a middle school and high school teacher in Durango and in New Mexico. Eventually, I earned a Master’s Degree in Language Literacy and Sociocultural Studies from UNM and have been working for twenty years as a college professor, most recently as a Visiting Instructor at Fort Lewis College teaching Comp 150.
My dream of working for a big magazine morphed int to the dream of being a published author and I have been working on my book for over 25 years. While I have written small pieces published in magazines, newspapers, and junior high publications, “Under The Oak Tree” was published in December of 2021 and is a tribute to my late father whose life is at the center of this family memoir. It is really a dream come true.