My Name is Alice & This is My Story. Growing up as an only child until I was nine had a lot to do with making me a storyteller. I wasn’t really alone because I had my imagination and spent loads of time there. I also had Grandma and she did two amazing things for me. She told me stories of her own and she listened to mine. I’d sit at the table in her warm kitchen and kick my toes under my chair because my feet didn’t yet touch the floor. I'd talk while Grandma listened with a twinkle in her eye behind her rimless glasses. Because of Grandma I love to tell stories. In the eighth grade I had a teacher named Mrs. Mahon. I was a restless, troublesome student. Then she assigned a writing project and I wrote several pages without a restless moment in any of them. When Mrs. Mahon handed back the graded papers she dropped mine on my desk & said “You know how to write, girl.” I figured that must be true. Mrs. Mahon wouldn’t have complimented bad-student me unless she meant it. At last I had something I loved to do that I was good at doing. Still it was decades before I talked about my dream to anybody but myself. My husband Jonathan asked me a question that changed my life. “If you could do anything at all what would it be?” I couldn’t answer right away. I was afraid that if I spoke the words out loud they'd shatter in the air and my dream would shatter with them. Finally I said “If I could do anything at all I’d be a writer.” Those words did not shatter and everything I’ve done since has been about pursuing them.