I was born in 1987 in to the most beautiful, kind, and caring woman you will ever meet. You might say that I had quite the chaotic childhood, but there were three constants: books, cats, and love. My mom made sure that my life was replete with all three. For as long as I can remember she has made sure that I been surrounded by all three in abundance.
It is through my love of books that I discovered a fondness for writing. Certainly if these random names on the covers of these books could write such wonderful stories, I told myself, then I could as well. I was ambitious from a very young age, you might say. I began crafting stories—complete with full color drawings—from a very early age.
But like all things born before puberty my burning passion for writing was placed on the back-burner during adolescence. Soccer, cheerleading, and SAT/ACT exams were suddenly all-consuming. In hindsight those halcyon days when we had so little to really worry about were a magical time. We were almost but not quite free, pulling at our tethers to see how far we could go, comfortable in the knowledge of a safety net.
Those days ended early for me rather unexpectedly. I moved between states at an awkward time and was suddenly told that I had enough credits to graduate. So I did. Abruptly emancipated, I began applying to universities and began working two part-time jobs in the meantime. Driving down I-20 listening to burned CDs an hour each way to and from work every day gave me plenty of time to think. To plot. To plan.
Several years later, I graduated from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics. To be fair, I probably attended class as much as I skipped, and when I did attend I diligently took “notes” (i.e. wrote my first novel). Apologies to all of my professors I had during this period! And thank you for allowing me the space to indulge my creativity.
You will excuse me if I gloss over a bit of my history at this point. Suffice to say that I had thirteen major surgeries in ten years culminating in bilateral knee replacements. I did have a lot of downtime to write and work on my craft, but I will admit that much of it wasn’t very good. Still, I persisted.
During this time I attended the University of Georgia at Athens, Georgia and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing. I attended mostly via distance learning due to my frequent operations, but I got the job done. I tossed the idea of becoming a teacher around in my mind before coming to the conclusion that I am most definitely *not* teacher material.
That was when I decided to whole-heartedly decided to focus on writing as a career choice. I had no idea how I was going to make it work, or even if I could make it work. I just knew that I wanted other people to read the thoughts in my head that I put down on paper.
Which brings us roughly to the present. While I have chosen to tip-toe around some eras (such as my current era) and completely leap over others (the COVID years), this is me to date. I do not know what my next era will be, but I hope it has the words “successful author” in it somewhere.
