Why I write

I write because I love to tell stories--a trait that gets me into trouble in real life because I love to make the mundane more fantastic. As a kid, I'd staple folded papers to make my own "novels." As a tween, I wrote stories in my notebook while the girls in my dance class waited for the next page to be finished. My teachers told me I should be a writer. But I thought only "special" people could be writers, so as the years past, I settled into the idea of becoming a lawyer or something else just as ordinary.

I rediscovered my love for stories during college when I spent a summer writing and directing plays for at-risk kids from inner-city Philadelphia. Writing made me happy! When I got back to school, I filled my schedule with as many creative writing classes I could talk my way into, and started my very first real novel. But regular life kicked-in, and a couple of years later I was married with a new baby, working full-time as we struggled to make ends meet, and only had 80 pages of a manuscript. That's when the universe decided to throw a pick-up truck in my path. No, literally--a big, white, pick-up truck crossed the median on a stormy night just before Christmas of 2002 and hit us head-on. My baby and husband were okay (thank goodness!) but I was looking at surgery and months and months of learning how to walk again.

I realized at that moment life was too short to not be doing what you absolutely love. I knew that if I had died, the two things I would have regretted the most were not being with my family, and never becoming a real author. A few days later, my wonderful husband brought a refurbished laptop to my bedside and said, "You'd better start writing." My life hasn't been the same since. I'm now a full-time mom and writer, determined to become an author. And the most satisfying thing in the world is when my now six-year-old son asks, "Mom, can I tell you a story?"