I guess you could say I’ve been writing since before I could write. The first thing I remember “writing” was a poem I dictated to my mother when I was five. I sat in the back seat of the car, it was late (or was to a five-year-old), and my mother wrote down the whole poem for me on a little notebook she had in her purse. It was called “Do You Believe in Monsters?” and it rhymed. I lost the paper a long time ago, but I remember one of the verses went:
Do you believe in monsters—
the ones that are big and tall?
Do you believe in monsters
at all?
Genius obviously. (Hey, I was five.)
That probably would have been the highlight of my writing career right there if I hadn’t been encouraged to try writing fiction again by a wonderful English teacher in high school.
Over the years, I’ve tried my hand at a number of genres, but the one I keep returning to is the paranormal. After all, I grew up listening to my mother’s recordings of Vincent Price reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Pit and the Pendulum, and “The Raven.” I didn’t always understand the stories, but I loved the creepy mood they evoked.
When I was older I adored telling ghost stories around the camp fire. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. And hey, my mother used to dress up as Dracula that night. How could I not learn to love the creepy and macabre? Mythology, which can be pretty creepy itself when it’s not being quirky, also fed that love in high school and college.
So there you have it. A little about me. Oh sure, I could have told you some other stuff, but it doesn’t have anything to do with monsters. Still, if you’d like to know, you can click here.