With stapled packets clutched in my marker-stained hands, I delivered the news to our neighborhood. Well, by neighborhood, I mean the seven houses on our street. Oh, and the “news” came in stapled packets of paper, written and illustrated in marker. It included groundbreaking stories like Mrs. Eldridge’s Elkhounds Bark at the Mailman and Bear Greets Neighborhood Kids at Afternoon Bus Stop (Bear was a neighbor’s cat).

I knew I was a writer. My second-grade essay, Grandpa’s a Nice Guy, won a county-wide essay contest. I wrote books every year for the young author program, and by fourth grade, I wrote and delivered a newspaper.

But time and life have a way of dimming our dreams, and often, the road we travel does not lead to what we envisioned as children. I walked away from my dreams in my twenties and have spent the last two decades focused on being a wife and homeschool mother. Now, our emptying nest has more and more space for the dreams I left behind…join me as I step into the next chapter of my life as a storyteller.