Well, to begin with…

I have always loved words.  As a child, I loved all aspects of words: the spelling bees, the diagramming trees and branches, vocabulary tests, and in my later school years –the etymology of words.  That’s just a fancy way of saying “the roots of words.”  For me to discover that our English words have their roots in many Greek and Latin words –well, that just opened up a whole new world to me!  A world that finally made sense to my brain…it was like finally discovering a treasure map and finding my way to the X and opening the treasure chest!  And there they were; all those Greek and Latin roots that made modern-day words so much easier (and fun!) for me to decipher both the spelling of and the definition for.  

Yes, Virginia, I am that person.  

But maybe you are too.  Maybe that’s why you’re here.  And i’m so glad you are!

What are your earliest memories of writing? Mine include several core memories: the year I was one of three “Head Editors” of my sixth grade newspaper –in a school with only one sixth grade class and in which the total student roll for said sixth grade class was about 30 students!  Yes, you have my permission to laugh!  But to a young writer in charge of words and their placement on the paper, it felt like I was an editor for The New York Times! I can still smell the mimeograph ink, feel the warmth of the paper as they rolled off the roller, and sense the annoyance of all that blue ink all over my fingers and the paper!  Other writing memories include the first time I ever submitted an original short story to somewhere other than school  –it was to one of those tiny little ads in the back of comic books and Mad Magazine; you know the ads I’m talking about  –”Submit your story for a free evaluation!”...and then how proud and amazed I was when I received the glowing response back from The Famous Writer’s School, letting me know how talented I was, etc, etc, and that all I “had to do was send in my first installment payment…..”  Yeah, that was my first introduction to deceptive advertising –a thing I disdain to this day! Then there was the one school year everyone teased me by calling me, “Mrs. Webster” because of my love of using big words instead of “normal” ones in conversation.  They might have thought I was trying to show off my prowess for vocabulary, but I honestly just had fun learning and using unusual words!

Maybe you did too.  Maybe that’s why you’re here.  Welcome!

Books.  I fell in love with books at an early age too.  School libraries –who remembers the Scholastic Book Fair?  Local public libraries and their unique smell of musty old books combined with old wooden floors–and did yours have a BookMobile?  Mine did –if I had to describe it, I would say it was like an old converted UPS truck that would roll up to a local shopping center once a month and park there, where then you were able to walk up those front steps on the passenger side and peruse one long center aisle with books of all topics on either side of the aisle.  Then, when you were done, you checked out your book at the book end of the truck where a librarian sat at a desk, stamp in hand, just waiting for you to leave out the back door so they could resume their quiet time.  Quick side note about me –I was probably the bane of their existence because it takes me forever to choose just one of ANYthing, especially  a book!  

Later in life would come huge bookstores at malls, thrift stores filled with old books, and –much later still – my own Library Wall built entirely from scratch by my amazing husband.  And yes, ladies…it DOES have it’s own rolling ladder!  And yes, ladies…i DO feel like Belle in Beauty and the Beast.  iykyk 😂

So yes, I would say I have always loved books.  And writing.  And words.

Maybe you did too…and maybe…just maybe that’s why you’re here.  Welcome home.