With parents who were reporters at The Washington Post during the Watergate Era, I grew up in the newsroom, surrounded by typewriters, passionate people and the smell of newspaper ink. I marinated in the ink as a child and it became infused in my blood, like an I.V. drip. I have always written and have always been the writer in the family, while my brother was the artist. It started out as a way to escape myself yet express myself. Immerse yet disappear. And then a teacher told me “if you can write like that, keep writing.” And it became a skill and a source of pride. Then it became a profession that paid my rent. I used to write sad, dark stories with twisted plots, some fiction, some real. The real was when I wrote the news and it was all about fires, robberies and shootings. Now I’m much more at peace and my writing voice has changed. I use it to teach and inspire and elevate if I can. It has grown stronger and louder, yet gentler and more compassionate. Capturing an entire story and scene simply on a page is –and always will be– a fascination of mine. I have tried to stop writing, especially after a book got rejected by publishers, which I mourned like a stillborn death. But then I feel empty with no words to fill me up. And I remember that strange type of blood blackening my veins.

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