I am sci-fi born and raised. In the 9th grade I was allowed to pick my own book for a book report and chose Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. When my mom asked how I liked it, I announced “I want to be buried with this book.” My love for Card continued, so when I got to choose the last name for my only fake ID, I picked Evelvenin from the Flower Princess in Hart’s Hope. In retrospect I should not have been surprised when it was confiscated on its maiden voyage. At least I didn’t pick the Flower Princess’s first name – Enziquelvinisensee.
A key component of my angsty teenage phase – sitting with friends at Denny’s writing in a maroon velvet journal, burning the edges of the pages to up the emotional impact.
While my first 18 years were spent in Miami, I want to college in Minnesota. It was the first actual life decision I made on my own, and I based it on the following a) I’d never seen snow, so wouldn’t that be great (man did I not understand how it would affect my daily life); b) I’m geographically inept, so I forgot it bordered Canada; c) the interview took place on a rainy Miami day in a private house with a fireplace and two lap cats.
I met my best friend in college while acting in a show. She wasn’t in the play, yet would build sets late into the night, and I thought “Wow, she really loves theater.” I later found out she was dating the director. They are two of my favorite people in the whole wide world.
I waited for marriage until I met “the one.” He gave me an Orson Scott Card book as a present in our first month of dating. One of his earliest lines to me was “I never think of you as being older than me.” I’m only 3.5 years older so let’s all calm down. He is immensely supportive and ridiculously frustrating in almost equal measure.
I’d always cared terribly about professional success until I had twins. When they turned two, I set the wheels in motion, and now only work part time so I can spend a lot more time with them before they go to school full time and lose interest (in me). Right now they think I am amazing.
I cry every time I read Horton Hatches the Egg. I tear up (or bawl, depending) whenever Anna sings the end of Do You Want to Build a Snowman. It’s the line – “It’s just you and me, what are we going to do?” that really rips me apart. I also lost pretty much all emotional control reading The Giving Tree to my kids for the first time and kind of ruined it for them.
I’m currently writing children’s books and plan to do whatever it takes (literarily) to get published.
