How did you become a writer?

Be being a humongous reader!

I’ve always read. My first words were, “No more tears, no more tangles” on a bottle sitting on the bathroom counter as my mother brushed out my hair. I was so proud. After that it was every Dr. Seuss I could get my hands on. I loved the rhythm and the rhyme of the books, the cadence swept me away, much like musicals do.

At the end of every day, my fourth grade English teacher read us Shel Silverstein—again, I was gaga. As I got older, I was drawn toward narrative poems, ballads—The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes was an obsession, I read it, I wrote it, I read it some more.

Then I