A couple years ago, I was teaching a class in Madison on freelance writing. There was a woman who sat in back named Maggie, and she said she’d never heard of freelancing before. But by the time the second class rolled around, she had pitched, sold and written her first story. Not surprisingly, these days, she’s enjoying no small success, both in her writing and with her blog, Okay, Fine, Dammit, which gets a phenomenal amount of traffic from people who’ve fallen in love with her voice. (Check it out, you’ll see why.) But also this month, she and I share bylines in Madison Magazine. Hers is a heartbreaking piece about what could be a tired and maudlin topic in the hands of a lesser writer: domestic violence. It’s been great to watch her career take off and her talents unfold, and this week, our great editor, Brennan Nardi did an interview with both of us for her blog Forward. You can read her (and my) responses here.