I’ve loved writing since I learned how! It all started for me in Language Arts when I was a little girl in elementary school. When we were given assignments for creative writing, short stories, and given prompts! I loved being able to create something out of nothing and do anything I wanted with it! Writing is a form of art and creative expression. It allows the imagination to run wild! The possibilities of the worlds you can create and the stories you can tell are endless! When I wrote my novel Gwen, I was able to take all of these ideas that I had been thinking of for so many years. I was able to take all my notes of ideas and put them together to create this whole other fantasy world. All of the elements, ideas, and vocabulary came together to create something magnificent. It’s amazing what you can create such as an elixir kiss or a wizard that is also a gold dragon. But what has inspired me the most with my writing are the amazing teachers that taught me. My English teachers were the nicest teachers I ever had and they all inspired me in different ways. I was actually behind in learning how to read and Mrs. Thomas taught me. I didn’t learn how to read until the second grade and I learned when Mrs. Thomas read a book with me backwards. Mrs. Carr in Junior High would have lunch with me when I was bullied, Mrs. Harrison in high school had me help her grade other students assignments, Dr. Gonder in college taught me about structure and teaches Mythology and Fairytales, and my college poetry Professor Mike Latza. He changed my life and opened me up to a whole new world of creative writing. He is the reason why I fell so in love with poetry. My first draft of Gwen was written as an epic poem. Professor Latza would write themes on the white board for us to create and write poems about. One day I thought about a fairytale and wrote the entire story out as a poem. Gwen never would have happened or came to be if it wasn’t for Professor Latza. And while writing a book is a huge undertaking and a lot of work, it’s very enjoyable. You immerse yourself and get lost in a whole other world. You escape the daily stress of life and reality. Getting lost and caught up in Gwen, I started having dreams I was there in that world and more ideas came.
