No parent should ever have to write a eulogy for their child.  Yet, in April 2012, that is exactly what I was doing.  My vibrant, loving, vivacious, wonderul nine-year-old daughter was gone, and I was left with a broken heart as well as a husband and won who needed me, it seemed, to be whole. What do you do after something like that? "You should think about writing," a friend said. And so I did.  I gathered my characters around me and shared my sorrow with them.  I had little to no faith in my story and even less in myself.  That very story, though, helped me to survive the months following the loss of my daughter.  I wasn't sure that I would ever send the story to an agent or publisher.  I didn't believe in myself quite enough for that. At the heart of things, it came down to this:  I had to do what I could to honor my daughter.  She was an amazing person, and her death tore a hole right through the center of my life.  I couldn't let the pain win.  I couldn't give up on living.  I had to do something with my life that would have made my daughter smile with delight. So I submitted that first novel to a publisher. Here I am now.  A couple of contracts later.  I work each day to improve my craft, to get better at what I do, to give my readers the best of me, and to live my life in celebration of the goodness that has touched it.