Every time I try to answer questions such as: When did you decide to become a writer? or When did you fall in love with reading? I struggle. The truth is, it’s hard to trace my love of all things bookish back to a beginning. My parents read to me as a child, which must have left the huge impression on me that everyone says reading to children can leave.

To be honest, I barely remember learning how to read. I barely remember not knowing how. I remember pulling off any and every book from my first and second grade classroom shelves and devouring them at my desk in every spare moment I had. In fact, I stuffed my nose so literally in books that when the school coach stopped by my class once, he expressed a concern that I might have sight problems.

I didn’t. I just liked to live with my nose literally stuck in a book, like Belle. I guess I was so caught up in whatever I was reading, I couldn’t help but hold it as closely as possible.

And as for writing? I know at the age of ten I was typing out short children’s mystery books on the family computer. I know at the age of eleven Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which my mom read out loud to my brother and me, inspired me to begin writing my own fantasy novel, scribbled in endless notebook pages and then eventually typed on our computer.

But when did it start? I don’t know. I’ve actually come across mini “books” I’d illustrated as a child and then, because I couldn’t write yet, dictated to my mom. So there you have it: proof I was even writing before I could actually write.

I guess the short and cliché answer is that writing and reading is an integral part of who I am. It’s been a lifelong passion, instilled in me by the parents who read to me. I simply can’t imagine my life without books!