I wrote my first book when I was eight years old. It was a book about the weather and it was called, of course, The Book of Weather. I took construction paper and drew the sun and wind and clouds, wrote about lightning and thunder and fastened the pages between two pieces of cardboard taken from my father’s new button-down work shirts. I covered the cardboard with green and yellow wallpaper that had bright and bubbly orange flowers dancing along it. The wallpaper had been left over from decorating our 1970’s Long Island kitchen. I was pleased with my book but nothing made me prouder than when the librarian placed it in my elementary school library. I visited it every day. I don’t recall anyone checking out my book, or if it was given its own listing in the card catalogue or even a Dewey decimal number, but I didn’t care. There it was on the shelves. My book. I was a writer. And a writer I was determined to be until the day came when practicality usurped my ......

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