My Road to Becoming An Author
When I was ten years old, I wrote a poem for an assignment in Mrs. Search’s fourth grade class. My older sister Sharlynn read my poem and said, “That’s really good. You should be a writer.” Sharlynn’s words triggered something in me, and from that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Having come to this momentous decision, I immediately sat down and wrote an account I had heard of my great, great grandmother who came to the United States from Denmark at the age of sixteen. Someone in my family helped me send my story to The Children’s Friend . Many months later it appeared in the magazine on their children’s page, and I had my first intoxicating taste of being published. This prompted me to write a novel. I was at that time enamored with Nancy Drew, and inspired by her, I wrote a mystery. I don’t recall its title or characters, but I do remember that it was fifteen pages long, hand written in my fourth grade scrawl, and that the lost money was