About Marian
As a child, I remember writing, but I cannot recall exactly when it all started. Perhaps it was at the time I learned to read and write. At six years old I was writing letters to relatives in North Carolina and I suppose it blossomed from there. As I grew older, those letters evolved into stories of people I did not know, of people I created. Later in my life I sat in my eighth-grade history class writing one of my stories, this was where some of my characters back then were born. On this particular day, a friend paid more attention to me feverishly working on one of my stories. She asked to read it. I refused her, because I feared the ridicule that was certain. Totally ignoring me, she snatched it from my desk. I let it go easily enough because I did not want my precious work to be destroyed.
I sat there studying Regina’s expression and waiting for the teasing to begin and to my surprise not as much as a smile played across her face. When she had read it all she turned to me and said, “This is good”. Once again ignoring my protest she passed it on to another friend, who read it and passed it on to one of our male friends. In the corner of the room where we all sat, the buzz of whispered voices rose slightly as my friends urged me to continue the story for them! At that age, my friends were not readers and it came as a surprise that they did not find what I was doing to be silly. This was truly a revelation because not only could I write something that others were interested in reading, but I could inspire the desire to read. Their interest in my writing was all the validation I needed.
