SHARED SKIES

Reading and writing have always been a part of who I am.

While most 7-year-old kids took ballet or piano lessons, I chose speed reading and creative writing classes. I started my first journal in second grade (and have kept a journal since). My Dear Diary, Dr. Seuss and Nancy Drew were some of my closest friends as I grew up. My love for reading and writing continued in middle school when I discovered Shakespeare, wrote for the school paper, and enjoyed with gusto my English classes’ 15-minute-a-day journal-writing activity. I fell in love with Tolstoy’s Levin and Miller’s Biff Loman in high school; it was so bad that I would quote lines from Russian novels in conversations with friends. I re-read Shakespeare (and played Moth in our production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and continued to write. I wrote on the school bus, under the trees, and in coffee shops; for school assignments, for friends, for myself, for fun. Armed with a flashlight and a pen under my blanket, I would write past my bedtime, furiously and secretly, about the angst and dreams of a 16-year-old. In college, I drank from Walden’s Pond, woke up with a jolt after reading Fr. De Mello’s The Way to Love, and, admittedly, enjoyed writing lengthy papers on Walt Whitman and Hannah Arendt. After getting teary-eyed with Shel Silverstein’s stories and seeing myself in Yellow from Hope for the Flowers, I decided to sign up for a class in Writing and Illustrating for Children. The class only confirmed my growing interest and appreciation of children’s literature.

Books for children have a special place in my life and on my bookshelf; I find myself heading straight for the (more) colorful and less quiet sections of bookstores. I continue to be drawn to children’s literature as I dream of joining INK early next year.