My third grade teacher accused me of plagiarism.

 

Our assignment had been to write a book. While other classmates wrote simple stories of their pets or summer vacation, I wrote an elaborate nine-page narrative about an imaginary homeless artist. I included a dedication.

 

While my teacher had never actually seen my story elsewhere, she was fairly confident no eight-year-old thinks in those ways. My parents are called. They vouch for me. And there begins my unabashed love affair with the written word.

 

From then on, I was labeled “precocious” – a term used as more of a warning than in endearment.

 

“She’s either going to be creative or a criminal, maybe both.” A quick background check can confirm which path

I took.

 

All these years later, I still think in strange and unusual ways. But it’s created the work you’ll see on the following pages. And I can’t wait to see what it thinks of next.

 

I am very lucky.