When I was eight, I wrote my first book — eighty‑seven pages, one paragraph, and a sci‑fi story called The Bird of Time. I handed it to my mother, hoping she’d read it. She didn’t even open it. She just said, “Nobody is ever going to read what you write.”
I threw the book away. I didn’t throw away the writing.
My mother struggled with addiction, and I was too young to understand that her words weren’t really about me. But they stuck. For decades, I wrote in secret — twenty‑plus novels that lived in drawers and folders because I was afraid she might be right.
When I turned sixty, I realized something simple and brutal: the only way she’d be right is if I never tried. So I started publishing. And readers found me. And they asked for more.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe I was supposed to share my stories all along.
When I was eight, I wrote my first book — eighty‑seven pages, one paragraph, and a sci‑fi story called The Bird of Time. I handed it to my mother, hoping she’d read it. She didn’t even open it. She just said, “Nobody is ever going to read what you write.”
I threw the book away. I didn’t throw away the writing.
My mother struggled with addiction, and I was too young to understand that her words weren’t really about me. But they stuck. For...
