Samantha Bennett grew up at the other end of Pennsylvania but is a pretty OK person anyway.

She received a bachelor's degree in English from Yale University and has a master's in professional writing from Carnegie Mellon but still cannot successfully transfer a phone call. Her checkered past includes stints at the Register Citizen of Torrington, Conn., and the New Haven Register. She was hired by the Post-Gazette in 1994 as a copy editor but has been assimilated into post-gazette.com as online liaison for the Features department.

She has been writing her award-winning column since 1998 and is vice president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

Samantha's Thursday post-gazette.com column appears Sundays in the PG's Washington County print edition.