Finding Sarah
I was in seventh grade the first time I felt like maybe I was a writer. My language arts teacher coaxed it out of me. She was a young, pretty, newly-minted college graduate with blonde hair that fell softly to her shoulders. Funnily enough, I can’t remember her name or another other features, but I do remember that she would read to us from chapter books almost every day. At the time, I kind of felt like I was too old for story hour – but, our whole class would sit transfixed while she read books like Matilda , and The Witch of Blackbird Pond . Somehow, those stories would transport me from the classroom into a wide world completely constructed from words. It had never happened before. My teacher also read some of her own creative works. The one I remember best concerned the despondent life of a house fly. So convincing was her portrait of the measly, black fly that I spent years believing flies really did want to be swatted so they could end their miserable existence as quickly as pos