At the ending of each school year my family would pack our summer belongings and head to Western Massachusetts to our summer home; the farm house where my father grew up. Being torn away from my school friends each summer, I found myself very bored and often alone on our small little mountain having no kids my age to keep me entertained. It was during these summers I often found solace with paper and pen. I would rummage through the drawers of my grandparents old desk, fishing out any sort of paper and writing utensil I could find. Then I would hold up in a corner somewhere and begin to create stories of young girls finding hidden treasure, or poems about the stormy seas. I would lose myself in these stories and poems; they were my refuge from boredom.
It wasn’t until high school, though, that I realized my true love of writing. I remember sitting in English class, we had just finished reading “The Lady, or the Tiger” by Frank Richard Stockton and my teacher gave us an assignment to complete the story. My face lit up and I filled with excitement at the challenge of creating an ending, but all around me I heard moans and sighs and as I looked at the foreboding and wearisome faces of my classmates I realized I didn’t just write out of boredom, I wrote because I enjoyed and even loved writing.
As a young college student I had the honor and thrill of having an article published in Alliance Life Magazine, and getting that small taste of publication has caused me to hunger for more. Since becoming a mother of three beautiful, yet very energetic girls I have a strong desire to write for them. I want to write children’s literature that will nurture and guide my girls into becoming strong, confident, loving young women in a world that is seemingly growing harsher by the minute.
I am so fortunate to have a loving, loyal, and supportive husband, who too often finds himself picking me up and brushing me off when I feel defeated – thank you so much Jason. I have always been fearful of calling myself a writer, believing one would have to be published to claim that title. Now I realize that just as a mother becomes a mother by giving birth, a writer becomes a writer by birthing their thoughts, ideas, and stories onto paper. Just as a mother nurtures and molds her children, preparing them to enter this world, we as writers mold, and nurture our children, releasing them to the world in hopes they will be accepted and even be a positive influence to society. So here and now I am officially declaring it, I am a writer; good, bad, or indifferent, only time will tell.
