About Me
As an avid reader, I usually become a little obsessed with my favorite authors. I like to know as much as I can about them: what kind of a person they are, where they live (not a street address or anything, I’m not a stalker!), their hobbies, their family life, and so on. It is an obsession that I cannot really explain, but I know that many others feel the same way I do about their favorite authors, so I’m not really ashamed of it! So, I will try to answer a bunch of these questions here (if I don’t mention something, feel free to email and ask).
Currently, I live in Boston, Massachusetts, and have been up here for the past three years. I grew up in—what I consider—the middle of nowhere. Anyone hear of The Pocono’s in northeast Pennsylvania, the once honeymoon capital of the world (about 2 hours north of Philadelphia)? Whether you have or haven’t, that’s home. In May of 2008, I will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from Northeastern University here in Boston (even though writing is my first and strongest love, statistically speaking, it is better to have something to fall back on… just in case).
Most writers can be found saying that they knew they wanted to be a writer ever since they were 7-years-old. Well, not me. Not by a long shot, in fact. I was a mild reader when I was younger, never anything extraneous, and even stopped reading for pleasure for a while (I know… just thinking about it now gives me the shivers!). My reintroduction into the literary world can actually be attributed to one author: Piers Anthony. For a while after that, I was afraid to read anything outside of his novels for fear of once again losing interest in reading. Then, I was able to move on to other Fantasy authors (staying inside of the genre wasn’t too scary a thought), before finally branching out into other genres. Now, I love to read almost anything I can get my hands on (though, admittedly, I can’t really stomach Sci-Fi… sorry!).
I actually started writing when I was in eighth grade, at the prompting of my English teacher, Mrs. Coco. We were asked to keep a little journal of stories, and I found myself writing in it more and more as time went on, and she was always there for encouragement and praise. Little one-page stories grew to be several pages, and they kept growing from there. Jump ahead to tenth grade when I got the idea for my first novel. It took me two years, and many thousands of unusable words, to finally come up with the right plot, thought out characters, and the perfect first novel (for me, at least). Two years after that, a novel was born, and I’ve kept writing ever since.
I’ve branched out a bit from those early days. I’ve written a novel, a collection of stories (4 out of the 5 are actually around 10K words apiece), numerous short stories and humor articles, and I’ve even begun work on a screenplay. It may sound kind of cliché, but I love every aspect of writing, and every medium in which it appears (hence my seemingly erratic body of work). Though, I have to admit, I fall pretty flat when it comes to poetry (can’t read it, write it, nothing), but considering all of the other writing/reading options out there, I’m not too miffed about it.
Some interesting/weird/random facts about me:
~I love movies. I would go to the movie theater every night if I were able to.
~On the same note, I am a self-proclaimed Movie Trailer Whore… Can’t get enough of them (there are about 150 of them on my computer right now, and counting!).
~Traveling is a great passion of mine (as it is for most people). I have been to England, France (twice), Mexico, Canada, The Caribbean, as far south as Miami and as far west as Seattle (though, oddly enough, I haven’t been to the southwest at all… not that I’m particularly itching to go there). My next travel destinations are New Zealand and Italy (don’t know when I’ll go, but hopefully soon!), and eventually back to Germany to see where I was born (see below).
~I was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and lived there until I was 2-years-old. Unfortunately, I don’t remember it at all. I have also lived in Louisiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and now Massachusetts.
~I have a 3-year-old calico cat named Rachel (after Jennifer Aniston’s character in Friends).
~My friends and family have diagnosed me to have a little bit of OCD (hey, I like even numbers, okay?!).
~Reality television is an obsession of mine that I’m slightly ashamed of, yet end up telling everyone openly.
~I used to only write longhand and transcribe all of my stories onto the computer after the first draft (this is actually how I wrote my novel), because a stationary, blinking curser on a computer screen made me feel like I had to write and was wasting time if I wasn’t, effectively paralyzing any creative thoughts. (We’ll mark that as one of the “weird” facts, shall we?) Recently, I have been able to write on the computer as easily as I do longhand. Now, that’s what I call growth.
~I use my middle initial because a) it makes my name sound cooler, b) it balances out my first and last names (because they’re both 4 letters), and c) I grew tired of people asking me what my middle name is (Wallace, by the way). My parents would not be dumb enough to make my initials KKK, but thanks for asking.
I think that’s enough to be getting on with. And now that you know so much about me, go and check out my work! That’s why you’re really here, right? If you have any more questions for me, feel free to email me using the contact page!