Ceej Waters

My Story

Ceej is an Oregon native, born and raised in the Willamette Valley. Oregon is home, truly and deeply, and especially at its magnificent coast. Ceej is a true lover of the ocean -- and of Newport. She grew up taking family vacations to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, laughing at out-of-state friends experiencing the intense chill of the Pacific's tides, and memorizing the light pattern of the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. In her adult life, Ceej regularly takes solo trips to the coast to recharge and find inspiration for her heart's love of fiction writing, and her favorite place to land is the Sylvia Beach Hotel on Nye Beach.

She enjoyed a unique childhood, being home- and then un-schooled by her parents, and as a side effect of that, she participated in all sorts of unusual activities for a youngster, including participating in numerous non profit endeavors with her father. This included sitting in on more city council meetings than she cares to remember, helping to rehabilitate houses for low-income housing efforts, confusing the heck out of city task force members with her understanding of zoning laws when she had barely reached double digits of age, and belonging to her local neighborhood association board as a preteen. 

After a lifetime of skipping school, she went straight to college at 16 and subsequently graduated with a nursing degree. She has since dedicated her career to serving some of Oregon's most misunderstood citizens, working as a Mental Health Registered Nurse for over a decade. 

How does all of that lead her to be involved in the Newport Performing Arts Festival? Well, it turns out that a lot of the skills she uses in daily life are also key skills in performing, and she loves to perform. It was a combination of these intersecting factors and more that led Ceej to immediately fall in love with the very concept of NPAF. A place of community, of mutual support and belonging, somewhere where you can trust people to support you for who you are... it is something we as as a culture desperately need. Ceej has been there since the beginning, quietly cheering on and throwing ideas into the ring from the sidelines, and is thrilled to be able to step into an official role. 

When left to her own devices, Ceej can often be found in her garden, cultivating too many vegetables and daydreaming about permascaping with PacNW native plants. She might also be found cuddling with her cats, dabbling in sewing and embroidery projects, playing with her extensive collection of stuffed animals, or drinking tea and chipping away at writing fanciful stories.