My Life with Books

Recently I announced a new series of short memoirs, Stories from My Life. If you missed it, you can read about it here.  

There are eight short memoirs in the series. The first six are Dream Baby, Asses Anonymous,Chops, Forced Air, Words and Music, and Dream Girl. 

Today I’m introducing My Life with Books: Trips to the Library and Beyond. 

Here’s an excerpt:     

Maybe we all have a Mrs. Bruce—a teacher who fires our imagination and sends us off on life adventures. A tall, handsome woman, she taught eleventh grade English, a class my friends and I found ourselves eagerly hurrying to each morning.

Mrs. Bruce was full of aphorisms; in fact, we began writing down her sayings so we would remember them. One stuck with me and may have changed my life: “Writing is reading turned inside out.”

What a thought! The authors I loved didn’t live in a different world, doing rare things in unimaginable ways. They inhabited my world. My reading was the mirror image of their writing. They pushed out words, and I pulled them in. The stories lay between us, connecting us in deep and important ways.

I was a reader. Could I be a writer?

Use this link if you’d like to learn more about My Life with Books. It’s available in paperback and Kindle editions.  

Next month: I Believe in I Don't Know: Adventures in Faith.