I had been encouraged a lot by my parents and my sixth grade teacher, James Doyle at Main Street Elementary School. He was an early supporter of my writing ability.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I started writing stories when I was six years old. I was a very shy kid, extremely shy, and I had a fabulous first-grade teacher who told me to write.
I've known since I was 12 that I wanted to write. My father was a teacher, and there were so many books around, it seemed natural to pick them up.
It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.
Even though I was a reluctant reader in junior high and high school, I found myself writing poems in the back of class.
I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I'd written, I don't want to leave that behind.
Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings.
For all its ups and downs and challenges, I love writing. We only grow through adversity, so I welcome the difficulties, knowing bumps in the road are my greatest teachers.
The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.
My parents were avid readers. Both had ambitions to write that had been abandoned early in life in order to get on with life.
I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college.