I come from a family line of story tellers. I grew up at the knees of my mother, grandmother and grandfather, hanging on to their re-counting of southern living and growing. My world was surrounded by the natural earth. My mother is an avid gardener and if I wasn't on Mama Bridges' farm, I was in my own mother's garden, or walking the watermelon fields with Papa Lee.

In this world of natural beauty, I would sit astride Nelly, the mule, and ride her while Papa Lee told me about the animals that lived around the farm: the fox, the rabbit, the mice in the field who ate his potatoes.  I would ride to and from the family farm and listen to my mother tell stories of when she lived there, worked there, played there and left there.  Then we might sing a cappella hymns and songs of the south in harmony. In many ways, my childhood was enchanted and infused with all that I would grow to love and long to write about.

I started writing stories in elementary school, although I started telling stories of my own at a younger age. My favorite was the smash hit Fields of Mashed Potatoes. I cried for days because my mother laughed at the solemn dirge to the food I loved best dying to satisfy my insatiable need for mashed potatoes.

I was carried to church, during those years, as well, Southern Baptist churches, Independent Baptist Churches, Presbyterian Churches and even a Methodist Church or two.  I was raised during my most formidable years in a private Christian school. 

Mama Bridges and my mother encouraged me to become a teacher, a para-pro or anything steady and not back breaking.  It sounds romantic that I hoed fields with my grandmother. Sounds romantic, however, it didn't feel romantic when there were blisters between your thumb and first fingers. Certainly there is nothing romantic about working in a skirt. It just gives the bees and wasps easier access to places that you would never want a bee to go.

So while I grew up, I told cute stories to my mother and grandmother and was raised with the knowledge that writing was not a way to make a living. I read the Bible, memorized verses for money Papa Lee would slip me, sung more hymns in melody or alto that you would ever want to hear and learned to make biscuits and gravy from scratch. I disciplined myself to the harsh life of unfulfilled dreams, like every other woman in my line. 

Mama Bridges died of cancer when I was 18.  It wasn't her death that haunted me, it was what she was trying to do in those days before death. She would ask for pen and paper and try to stay coherent long enough to write them down, all those stories.  It was her unfulfilled life that haunted me. It was the scribbled writing that no one would ever be able to read, the dying attempt to keep creativity and a love of story alive

I went to college and got married all within the confines of the Christian religion.  I graduated with a degree in psychology and concentrations in theater and journalism.  I was the co-editor of my college paper and participated in many, many plays put on by the theatre group at my college.  When I left college, I left theatre and writing. Putting down the play things of college life to become an insurance salesperson.

I had a child. I got a divorce.

After my divorce though, things shifted dramatically.  I met different people  and began to read books I had wanted to read and was afraid to.  Now without a band about my finger and estranged from my family. I had a chance to develop, sans influence.  I flourished. 

I stepped into a world of Feminine Devine. I studied a new religion with the enthusiasm of a true fan. During this time of learning, I met and married my partner, my Husband Priest, my equal, Tony Crabtree.  In his family, I found acceptance and love.  I found a southern family that reminded me of Mama Bridges and Papa Lee. I found the home death had taken from me. 

Tony found his own Earth Based Practice and we became working partners in magic, in life and even in parenting. We went through a Vision Quest as partners and have walked through fire, literally. 

It was Tony that really helped me start on a path to being a paid storyteller.  He encouraged me every chance he got. He never complained that I quit work and didn't make a dime while I tried to perfect my craft before pitching it to publishers, agents and the literary world. I sit here writing this and all my books because of his love, support, input and devotion.

I make time to work on crochet projects and am a Mother to my son.  I teach selected students about the religion I love.  I cook, clean, do laundry.  I even make biscuits and gravy every once in a while.