Meet Lori B. Duff | Lawyer, Judge, Author

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lori B. Duff and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lori B., is there a quote or affirmation that’s meaningful to you?
“The only way out is through.” I think we all get stuck sometimes. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and get paralyzed by it. Sometimes there is so much to do, or the task in front of us is so distasteful that the thought of doing it is enough to freeze you in your tracks. I say this to myself a lot–“The only way out is through” along with “You can’t finish what you don’t start.” Momentum will carry you quite a long distance, but you can’t do anything if you don’t begin.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I don’t know if I would have made it as far as I have in the professional art world without Sharon Swanepoel. I’ve always written for fun, but her call for bloggers back in 2012 when she edited the local Patch is what brought my writing out into the public. It’s not been easy. It’s been a slow climb. I started at the absolute bottom and I’ve been taking one step up the slope every day. It’s been hard balancing my day job (lawyering) with my artistic life (writing) and finding time to do each of them well. I’m in my mid-fifties now, and this is my 31st year as a lawyer, so I feel more comfortable weaning off the practice of law and focusing more on creativity, especially now that I’ve managed to climb up the slope high enough to keep me busy. Writing is so much more than writing. Writing is the easy part–learning craft, revising, checking my ego at the door when editors tear my writing apart, marketing, publicity–that’s all the time-consuming part that can be a slog. People think that art (and sports) is just play, but it isn’t. It’s hard work. You’ve got to be constantly learning and churning and exercising your creative muscles to the point of exhaustion if you want to be any good.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’ve actually experienced this a few times. I grew up in Long Beach, Long Island, New York, which is about as different a place from Loganville, Georgia as you can get while still being on the east coast. I like taking visiting friends to places that are unlike anywhere they could find in the northeast. Waffle House is a must. If you haven’t eaten in a southern Waffle House, you haven’t truly visited the south. We have to eat Barbecue–my favorite local place is Foggy Bottom. We also have to eat at a meat-and-three restaurant, which I usually have to explain. The concept of non-vegetarian vegetables is foreign to most New Yorkers. In Loganville we have Kelly’s and Journey’s End. As far as tourist attractions go, I like taking people to Stone Mountain, because we’re so used to it here, we don’t think about it, but it is really shocking to people who don’t live in the south. The Civil War is history in New York, not a living, breathing thing like it is in the south, and it’s surprising that there’s this enormous monument to the losing side. It’s important that people understand how southerners see things. I also think the World of Coca-Cola is fun, and a very Atlanta thing to do. Plus, you have to eat a chili slaw dog at the Varsity. And take a tour through Oakland Cemetary. There’s so much interesting history there.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many different people who have helped me along the way that singling any one person or group out necessarily excludes some very important people. My parents taught me to believe there was nothing I couldn’t do and the only thing standing in my way was me. My husband is a terrible cheerleader in terms of standing on the sidelines and clapping, but he also understands what’s important to me and gives me the space to do it without complaint. When I was in the thick of career growth, the friends and encouragement I got through the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers was invaluable–it was so important to me to have a group of like-minded women who were similarly situated and experiencing the same things.

Website: Https://www.loriduffwrites.com

Instagram: @loriduffwrites

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loriduffwrites/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loribduffauthor/

Other: Substack: https://substack.com/@loriduffwrites

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Devils-Defense/Lori-B-Duff/9781647427368

Image Credits
Sharon Swanepoel