ABOUT

An avid adorer of words, I am pursuing a Master’s in Rhetoric and Composition at Georgia State University. I graduated from Shorter University with an honors degree in English, Psychology, and Liberal Arts. With publications ranging from peer-reviewed research on the stereotype of birth order to creative writing for websites, my literary journey was an adventure from the very start.

Anne Lamott wrote, “What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books… show us how to live and die.” Even as I was just learning how to live, books offered me a home in the world. As I grew up and learned to process life and even shift realities for myself, words were my powerful companion in my world creation.

From a pleasant North Carolina autumn to a cold Ohio winter, my young parents began their marriage seeking the grand adventure. And then, a grumpy baby came along to stir their story. My dad’s work on his biomechanical engineering PhD left my mom alone with me, the screeching child, in a small apartment for many hours. Trapped by the cold, my mother readily admits that those lonely days bored her. So before I could even form complete sentences, my mom taught me how to play pretend.

We would sit by the yard-sale play kitchen and cook stories. “Mmm, mommy.” I’d repeat, readily joining in her games of pretend. Imagination turned the dreary winter into a world of wonder, and in the days before I could identify a single letter, I learned to love a word’s ability to transform a scene of toddler tears to one of laughter. It was like opening a picture book, one without words, and writing the story with my mind, except the wordless picture book was my whole world.

We moved to Georgia when I turned three. My parents purchased a set of letter magnets. Bright in their bold promises, the primary colors made shapes I longed to understand. Imagination, I was learning, was even greater when the book actually had words. And these magnets were the building blocks to the words. Rearranging letters, I’d spell nonsense with pudgy hands. “KIEWHP—Daddy! What’s this spell?” I’d run to him and ask. “Nothing,” he’d reply with kindness, even though I’d already pestered him at least twenty times that morning about my colorful arrangements. I turned back to the refrigerator with wonder. “I know how to spell the word ‘nothing’” I muttered with glee.

With all of its fodder for imagination within reach, the small library near my house became another home. I carefully selected American Girl Doll books because I had the dolls and the dolls had more patience than my sisters. With just one chapter, I was the ten-year-old character discovering the secrets that would help my family survive the Great Depression. I was the 1854 immigrant, bravely admitting that I missed my far away family. I was the Native American, forced to walk the trail of tears.

Stories became powerful not only because they opened emotional corridors, but also because I could get cool things with words. I read C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, wrote about it, and suddenly the Atlanta Journal Constitution published it in their kid’s section. I learned to play the game of words, and with many rejections came a few opportunities.

By my junior year of high school, I’d surrendered to the stress of competition. Books remained my outlet, but when I was not escaping to fiction, I was firmly planted in the world of academic fervor. A research class I took for the extra quality point towards my GPA required I conduct an original research project and write about it. This writing wasn’t as fun as my stories, but then I received an email from a graduate student at Harvard approaching me about my research. She was starting a new journal for ‘emerging scientists.

Words did not disappoint. Through college, I clung to my early days of imagination and let it fuel lonely and joyful seasons. I continue to examine words, fully convinced that there is a science and an art to the emotional response a book or even an essay can conjure. Now in graduate school preparing to teach the miracle of words to other students, I realize I have only just started to comprehend the wonder. So as I study and still give in to the daydreams that have replaced my pretending, I continue to find that stories delightfully shape my own story and words still weave my world.

The magnet letters stayed on the bottom of the refrigerator for little sisters to grab (and often eat), and I grew taller. I saw the words on the to-do lists my parents wrote, and I understood. I was no longer limited to nonsense syllables. Now fully addicted to pretend, those same sisters who slobbered all over my beloved letter magnets were my prime subjects. I the princess, they the peasants; I the teacher, they the pupils. We would tromp to our treehouse and I would bestow upon each sister a character. Their patience never lasted long (maybe because I insisted on always being the girl and they were mere dogs), so I returned to the books to offer more ideas for the next game.

But my family was always kind and close by, and my home was not in danger. So my stories remained distant games of pretend until my little life changed with the world on September 11, 2001. Just a second grader, I could not understand all that was said on the news. My inability to fully understand did nothing to disguise the tragedy of the day. The clips of fire and death were too much, so I looked for something to read instead. Maybe words would help me understand. I went to my bookshelf, but my American Girl Doll novels only offered stories from a historic girl’s perspective; I knew all about the Revolutionary War, the Industrial Revolution, and the Civil War, but this was current and I realized for the first time that my dolls were only fictional. Under the soft glow of a book light in my top bunk, I drafted my own story.

I became an American Girl, and I desperately clung to words to understand the history in which I found myself. I wrote of a girl who had gone to school that Tuesday morning. She wore an outfit suspiciously similar to mine, but instead of living in Georgia, her home was New York and her parents were in the Twin Towers. My own words, though perhaps it was the power that inspired the words and the tragedy I’d finally enabled myself to understand, made me cry. My mom found the crayon written story and asked if she could enter it into a contest so other kids could read it. I won.

They had found my teacher, and he had recommended my research paper for their inaugural entry. The peer review process added anxiety to my days; they wanted me to cut out sentences like “birth order transcends the boundaries of age and culture,” and just say what I meant. I made the writing even more dry than it already was, and a few bewildering months later, I added “published by Harvard” to my barely beginning resume.

In doing so, I became the subject of newspaper articles. Colleges tend to like seeing the word ‘Harvard’ on a resume. So everyone was shocked when I chose to study English at a small Liberal Arts school. Teachers and competitors would shake their head and mutter, “what a waste.” I was an officially labeled, “emerging investigator,” but I adored words. Couldn’t I investigate the letters I loved? Stories still offered me comfort and a connection to the imagination that was my first friend. I still believed in their possibility. I still hoped in the future words might build for me.