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Sometimes, a teacher is more than just a teacher. Many students may attend college simply to better themselves, have a better chance at that dream career or maybe even just to get out of their parents homes. It is easy to forget that there is so much more going on outside of their own world. It happens.

Being able to see a broader picture of the world around you can help not only with broadening your horizons but could even lead to a fantastic night out.

Marni Troop is an English Professor at Pasadena City College, but many of her students may not know that she is also a professional and accomplished author, screenwriter and playwright.

One of her most recent accomplishments is having her second stage-play, “So You Want to Be a Vampire,” premiere at The Eclectic Company Theatre in North Hollywood.

It’s no surprise that it’s only the second play she’s written and it is already being produced because when it comes to writing, Troop has pretty much done it all.

“I am an author, I’m a playwright…screenwriter, ghost writer, and a story analyst,” Troop said.

Troop has even tried her hand at acting, but even that eventually led to a career in writing.

“I did improv for two years at the theater here. I didn’t consider it seriously for a career,” Troop said. “I didn’t really consider writing seriously for a career either until I was in college.”

Troop’s career in writing started relatively early on as she wrote an episode of the hit show Quantum Leap just out of college. It was really much earlier in her life, however, that the ink and quill worked their way into her veins. In middle school she joined the school newspaper and wrote a serial that she had a lot of fun working on.

In college, she received her degree in English with a minor in writing. She wasn’t sure what to do with her career at the time, thinking of doing something in communications, but she knew it would be in storytelling.

“I’ve been a storyteller all my life,” Troop said.

Among all of the ghost writing, television writing and playwriting, Troop has also finished two novels. She has to finish two more in the series but doesn’t know about continuing her work in books.

“I started writing novels because that’s a big way in to film and TV,” Troop said. “I wasn’t living in L.A. at the time and I thought that was my best shot.”

Troop has definitely started to make a name for herself in the industry. She has her sights set on television, although she said she wouldn’t be against writing a film. But she takes her role as a teacher seriously and puts effort into her classes and her students.

“I had a student this morning [say to me], ‘My friends asked me, since I’m taking this class, how it is. And I said I actually think that my English teacher is fun,’” Troop said. “It’s hard to make grammar and punctuation fun.”

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