Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I'm from Georgia, small southern town, not far yet worlds from Atlanta. As any author, my environment, experiences, real and imagined, influences my writings. The world and people around me provided a wealth of experiences from which to observe and learn.. My first love and focus was music. I sing, play piano and performed quite a bit over the years. Singing is still my passion. I enjoy writing and arranging songs that move people, songs that makes you feel. My parents were excellent at defining the parameters of their discipline model of which I respected highly. They also encouraged us to aspire to a better life using our academic abilities and talents. So, I set out to find, polish and develop my skills. One common thread and purpose of everything and anything I write is to inspire and provide a different perspective from my life's lessons. I learned early on that clarity comes to emotions, feelings and thoughts when you can put them into words. Writing gives me the satisfaction of a better understanding of myself and allows me to share with others to uplift and inspire. What better reason is there to write than to uplift, share knowledge and inspire?
When did you first start writing?
I first started writing in high school. I wrote our senior play that we performed. I continued writing plays in college that were performed each quarter by a production company. I developed a love of poetry early on prior to writing plays, My oldest brother, an excellent orator, chose me to be his audience as he practiced recitations of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, and Langston Hughes for competitions. He was unbelievably talented and inspired a deep love of poetry within me. Many of the poems in my book, "When My Heart Speaks" are from high school, college, and a few from more recent times. Writing is one of my treasured therapies and instruments of expression. My poetry is
merely written to express what I feel, not within the realm of those guys I mentioned earlier...just my honest me, hence, the title 'When My Heart Speaks."
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