Her first piece, published in her high school newspaper Dragon Tales, was short fiction about a mail call in Vietnam where her brother was stationed at the time. After experiencing the world as a journalist, a racehorse groom, a pre-school teacher, a freelance writer, and as a single mom raising her daughter, Rita completed her degrees at Wright State University. With a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing, she taught writing as a teaching assistant and as an adjunct at Wright State University and at the University of Dayton. Additionally, Rita specialized in poetry workshops for K-6 graders in the Dayton Public Schools and the Greene County Libraries.