ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I started writing in elementary school at around the age of twelve. I didn’t know then how much I would come to rely on my poetry as a release for my emotions, struggles, triumphs, and everyday thoughts. All through the early years of my life I was never allowed to do the things normal children did, due to my Epilepsy. I was always told I couldn’t do things, or that I’d never amount to anything.
None of my early poetry was ever published anywhere or seen by anyone. They were all lost in a flood in 2000, except for one. The biggest loss here was a poem I had written about my mother who died when I was only six, and never had the chance to get to know her. It took me awhile after the flood to get started writing again, but in October of 2000, I wrote Keep Looking.
In 2007 I joined an online community in the Opera Browser. I started blogging a couple months after joining, and was once again inspired to start writing my poetry. Between blogging and finding images on the Internet, I found lots of creativity, imagination, and most of all inspiration for my poems.
In 2009 I decided to put my poetry up as blog posts in Opera. Though only a couple of them ever got comments, I believe they have all been read at some time or another. This is the first form of publishing I have had for my poems. In 2009 I had a major event take place in my life as well. I took my very first steps to being totally free and independent of family members and their negative talk.
It started in early 2008 when I met Jaxs, and by the end of March 2009 I was on a Greyhound Bus heading to Florida away from my home in Michigan, and away from all the people who had nothing but negative things to say to or about me. Jaxs has been a godsend to me.
With his help, I have been able to reach out, venture out, come out of my shell, and uncork everything that was bottled up inside me for years.
My inspirations for writing my poetry have been my emotions, struggles, triumphs, images found on the Internet, photos taken by myself and Jaxs, or just looking out the window at a beautiful sunrise or sunset.
But the biggest triumph of all is that I SURVIVED everything because of my poetry. And in my surviving and venturing out it has led me to publish my first book of poetry.