Hi,

Visiting Portland, Oregon as a kid, I walked into Powell’s Books—this was before big box bookstores existed. It was the first time I had ever seen towers of books, bins of books, more than anyone could read in a lifetime. I remember deciding right then: no one ever needs to write another book unless something deep inside them tells them to.

I discovered The Chronicles of Narnia in that bookstore. It was C.S. Lewis’s writing that first made me hear that “something” inside myself—that voice whispering a story inside your head and nudging you to write it down.

I started writing my first book that summer at age 11. I also did not finish it.

Instead, I simply got older. At first, I got my real estate license at 18. (If I can read, write, travel, and make enough as an agent to invest in real estate myself—why go to college?) I got lured into higher education anyway. (I blame the untamed desire to learn things.) I ended up graduating summa cum laude with a degree in psychology pre-med. I then got my doctorate in Naturopathic medicine, passed some unthinkably long board exams and became licensed as a general physician.

Years later, I ended up leaving private practice and starting an IT-based venture with a close friend. We ran that business for 12 years and are still dear friends, defying the warning of mixing business with friendship. When I exited, I ended up investing in, of all things,  real estate, as if life were having me retrace my steps until it had walked me back to one of my deepest truths: that the entire time, that whispering voice had never left me. 

And I am so grateful that it stayed around all of these years, because writing, even for myself, has been one of my greatest joys.

Sharing my writing at this point is in part my reckoning with that voice. It is me– not only listening but finally saying a full-throated yes to taking the time, to trading hours, weeks, years of my life in order to spend moments in a world of imagination—and making the effort to share what I have heard.