Mickey Rogers

Growing up in Texas, surrounded by animals, I always knew that I would become a veterinarian. I guess that’s why I became an English teacher. Of course, my dream of being a vet was way before people were talking about things like multiple intelligences – all I knew was that I wasn’t exactly gifted in the areas of math and science. But I always had a book in my hand, and I was fairly adept at stringing together more than two words at a time, so my future seemed to lie more with words than with numbers and formulas.

I graduated from the University of Texas in 1975 with a degree in Spanish and Portuguese, and with my diploma in hand, promptly got a job as a tree surgeon. Doing physical labor in Texas in August was not my idea of a good time, nor was it a very promising career path, so I decided to get out of the trees and go to graduate school.

While I was in graduate school, I began teaching at the University of Texas Intensive English Program in Austin, where I taught off and on for about ten years. After finishing my Master’s in TEFL in 1980, I went to Bogotá, where I taught at the Centro Colombo-Americano and obtained an advanced degree in going to parties and dancing.

Since then, I have taught English in Sevilla, Barcelona, San Francisco, and again, Austin. I was teaching there in 1987 when a colleague asked me if I wanted to go to Mexico City and work for a publisher. I said no, thinking that it was an awfully big city, and also that you probably couldn’t get Texas barbecue there. Having said no, I moved to Mexico City in 1988, where I have been ever since.

At Macmillan, I have worked as a teacher trainer, a sales rep, an editor, a managing editor, a manager of academic services, and finally as a freelance author, which should give me more free time but doesn’t.

The only part of my life that’s similar to how I once imagined it would be is that I’m still surrounded by animals. I live with my husband, who is Mexican, and a menagerie of animals that includes chinchillas, an orphan goat and just about anything else that shows up at our door.