My first author article!

You know, you’ve seen them in the Sunday papers beneath mega-point headlines; those precious few smiling authors that are somehow magically chosen to be interviewed by literary professionals. Then one Sunday morning, without warning, you’re sitting at the breakfast table and it’s your face staring back at you. Your smile - your book cover. You’re the mega-point headline and for four columns - all above the fold - is the story of how you wrote your first book.

You run screaming into the family room, “I’m in the paper, I’m in the paper!” Suddenly you’re 12 years old and holding everything you ever wanted in your hands. You call your Mom, your friends call you, email you, light up your Facebook wall with hearts, balloons, and words of congratulations. In a time and place where such joy is scarce, it is a celebration you’ve only experienced in your dreams.

The question that has haunted you for ten years has been jubilantly answered - you’re an author now - and that acknowledgement validates each moment of those ten years of your life. Everything you thought you were changes in a single day and the words, strangled by the tears in your throat, are, “Thank you, God.”

Such awareness is rare and possesses its own kind of beauty that I hope, someday, happens to you.

Dayton Daily News, Sunday, 22 November 2020