November 19, 2025
I know that any reasons I give here will seem at first a bit trite, cliché, but the seeds of my interest in literature as an author go back some 60 years, when I inherited a set of the complete works of O. Henry, first edition, from my 22-year-old brother when he passed away in 1964. My Mom was cleaning out his things from his room and threw the set of green cloth bound hard cover books in a box that she earmarked for the trash. She didn’t notice that I dragged the box to my room and shoved it under my bed.
After events I recall in The Sleepover that Changed Everything, I found continued solace and escape in reading. Short Story reading matched my attention span, and the succinct brevity of their descriptions took me away from a place of grief, or being bed-bound, to imaginary worlds full of imaginary friends.
I could express myself creatively by helping a client draft promises to keep and rely on, but the story behind why they were doing what they were coming to me to document I found far more interesting.