Here's me in elementary school. Gotta love the color-coordinated barrettes! |
So, you want to know how I ended up becoming a writer? (Then again, maybe you don't. But I'm going to tell you anyway.) In a way, it's all my parents fault -- I was an only child, so I had no siblings to torment or be tormented by. And this was back in the way dark days, before XBox, chat rooms, even MTV. Lame, I know. Anyway, after school, I really only had books to keep me company. Plus, my mom was a teacher, and so every day, I would wait at the local library across the street from P.S. 24 until she could come pick me up.
Here's me in high school. Nice hair right? |
During those years, I read everything I could get my hands on: early favorites like Amelia Bedelia and Mrs. Higgle-Piggle, classics like A Wrinkle in Time, The Westing Game, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and series like the Wizard of Oz, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Great Brain, Little House on the Prairie, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, and, of course, anything by Beverly Cleary or Judy Blume. (I still remember reading about S-E-X in Forever in fifth grade-- shocking!) In fourth grade, my teacher hung a reading chart in the front of the room; every time we read a book, we had to put a little star next to our name. I was working on my fourth row before most of my classmates had finished their first. So, yeah, I was kind of a reading dork.
No way am I showing my awful high school year book photo! |
Somehow, reading led to writing, and I began penning little stories, pathetic ones, really, about spaceships and twin girls, most of them never completed, (thank god). And I filled four diaries between the fifth and twelfth grades, most of them full of drama over boys who are sooo yesterday's news. When I got to high school, I signed up for creative writing and served as the feature editor of my school paper. Then I went on to study journalism in college and report for magazines around the country like People, chasing down celebrities. But deep down, something was missing: writing my very own book, GOY CRAZY. I hope you like it. No, I hope you loooove it. And, now that I've achieved my life's work, I can die happy. No I can't! I want to write more of them. It's an addiction, I tell ya...
