I’ve always loved read.  After all, that’s what shy, chubby kids do. But before I learned to be uncomfortable in my own skin, I was quite the performer. Our local cafe had miniature juke boxes at each vinyl-covered booth. Whenever someone played a song I would get up and whirl around the tables. You couldn't really call it dancing, but it was cool. People threw money, well pennies and the occasional nickel. It was only much later that I realized they were paying me to stop ... but I didn't.  Normal 0 0 1 36 207 Market Arts, Inc. 1 1 254 11.1539 0 0 0 Beyond the steady march of books in my life, there has always been music. And it is music that informs my writing: voice, tone, phrasing, rhythm, cadence, crescendo, theme and variation. Instead of an MFA, my graduate degree was in voice performance. After many years as a starving artist (not that you could tell by looking) I stumbled into marketing. In time, I started my own creative services firm, developing dynamic brands on behalf of business clients. Still, my highest form of praise for any kind of writing is that it "sings" to me. I sincerely hope that my book sings to its readers. My favorite childhood book was Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It thrilled me with the idea of alternate realities, dimensional travel, and a heroine who was much more than she realized.  In my early teens, I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring trilogy. The language, the sound and shape of the words in my mouth, and the mythic scope of the story is as vivid today as it was on first reading. Normal 0 0 1 80 461 Market Arts, Inc. 3 1 566 11.1539 0 0 0 It is a fine thing to be a storyteller. There is music in every word.

Best reader, first grade. It's been a long, dry spell since unless you count awards for ad copy and web site design from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in 2010 and 2011.