The Beginning

With only 26 letters and a handful of punctuation, worlds beyond imagination are created and the thoughts that encompass our lives are altered. As a young child, my family moved from coast to coast and I was forced to constantly pick up my life and say good-bye. In the solitude that came with long airplane flights and strange, new neighborhoods I discovered myself within the pages of books. No matter where I was at in the world, my books were the constant I could rely on. There was always a new adventure to be had, a love story to dream of and the thoughts of a character that I could relate to—someone I could befriend and learn from. I drew strength from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House On The Prairie to face the unknown frontiers of foreign cities and dared to be different with the help of Ann Rinaldi’s vibrant female heroines. Then my mother gave me a new object that would change my world. Another book—but this book was different. This 8”x5” beauty, bound with glue and a plain purple cover, was filled with blank lined pages. These pages were calling to me, begging for my pencil to scrawl across those innocent white stripes to share what my heart needed to say to the world. If Laura could help me be brave, maybe my stories could help someone else.

After that, I was a lost cause. Reading intertwined with writing, the two actions blending and supporting one another, a way to learn and then an avenue to express. In high school and college, I worked for the school newspaper. I found not only was it beauty to tell my own devised tales, but I discovered the stories of others and that to write them onto a page gave me the chance to learn through other’s eyes. I interviewed unique community members and penned nonfiction glimpses of their lives for others to understand. I began typing my stories on the computer and when doing this, I found a passion in graphic design. Creating book covers for my stories and illustrating with type completed what I loved. When it came time to enter college, I knew what I wanted. This coming December, I will be graduating early from LMU with a Bachelor’s of Arts in English, a minor in Graphic Design and a Certificate in Pre-Journalism. The only thing that really seems to make sense is to listen to the world around me and then write with every ounce of my being in my words. What happened to me in Spring '08 only affirmed what I want from life...but that is a story to be shared next time.