I have been writing since I was fifteen months old. Granted, it was just swirls and scribbles, but it was a start to something. Something that brings me here. To the first post of my website that will (hopefully) bring many people to know more about me and my writing.

In my family, we are full of storytellers. From grandparents to aunts and uncles, I’ve been surrounded with people who have the ability to capture and audience to amuse and delight. That’s what I see myself as. A storyteller.

My parents bought me a Precious Moments journal back in the early 90s. In it I had small stories, like about my uncle Tony who loved to tease me. I had made up friendships when my own were lacking. I built special environments and made up names. I had an active imagination, which is absolutely necessary when you live out in the country with two older brothers who like to either ignore you or torture you. It’s no wonder I would dress up the vacuum cleaner in shirts and hats and pretend I had a friend to play with! (See my brothers always said they would hold that story over my head because it was embarrassing. Not today Joe and Jared! I said it first! I said it first! I win I win I win!)

I bring storytelling to every aspect of my life, including my job. My students love to get me off track and get me to move to the portion of the day called “Story Time with Miss D.” I indulge them often and try very hard to connect my stories to whatever we are learning at that time. That is why I will be sharing them with you, too. Maybe my students will find this page and read through the familiar tales from when they had to suffer through my English 9A class when I compared Jem and Scout’s relationship to my own brother-sister relationship. I hope they remember them and enjoy them as much as I like telling them.

This site is also to promote my new novel that is launching late this spring. I’ll have fun little nuggets not found in the story to introduce you to my fictional characters and where they live and what they like to do. I can’t wait to get Gretchen Burke’s Love Molecule in your hands as soon as possible. It’s been a project in the making since I started the first page back in 2009. Eleven years later and here I am, navigating the new world of self-publishing and promoting my novel.

To those who have helped me with it along the way: thank you is not enough. As I like to say, it takes a village to write a novel. I have the best damn little village out there.

Note: Even though I am a teacher, this is not a site dedicated to that part of my person. Stories involving students will not be addressed on here because, well, laws govern that. There may also be some “school-inappropriate language” in both my novel and my blogs. If my students are reading this, please remember that the writer is in the role of the thirty-something author and not your English or art teacher. And besides, it’s not like I haven’t heard worse language in the hallways! (“Language, please!”) I appreciate all of you; I’m so glad that so many of you have supported this part of my life!

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