Raised by a children’s librarian, there were always books in our house. Reading was part of everyday life. I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read. The skill infused itself into me before I started school.
I read everything – books, newspapers, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes. Stories fascinated me with their ability to transport me to other worlds. I could travel into a magical realm with Ray Bradbury in The Fog Horn, and learn about a lonely sea serpent. Or travel the wild west with Zane Grey and his cowboy heroes.
My taste in stories changed as I grew older and experienced more of the real world. I began to look for stories that showed that one moment in life that changed everything. Not just the big moments like marriage, babies, that first house, but the smaller ones. Moments like walking along a steam with my dog and watching her systematically hunt for squirrels. The sheer joy on her face as she runs free in the wilderness makes me believe dogs have an inner life.
I began to test myself and see if I could create some of those moments in worlds of my own imagining. It took a while working through all the components of story writing like characterization, setting, dialogue and so on, but eventually I learned their functions and how to balance them to create the desired effect.
Now I work mostly with short stories and have had some success in getting them published. I am beginning to branch out into a novel of interconnected stories like Russell Banks’s Trailer Park. The opportunities for showing how the transformative moment changes not only the main character but those around him/her are endless.
Story telling has been a part of human life since we sat around the fire in caves listening to someone tell about their hunting success or the oral history of the tribe. It is a delight to carry on the tradition.
Editor’s Note: For fans of Ray Bradbury, of which I am one, “The Fog Horn” appears in the collection pictured, Golden Apples of the Sun.
