the afternoon nap society

A recent graduate contacted me with a few questions about how I came to be where I am in my career. The questions gave me cause to think, and I felt compelled to share my answers so that any other young writers out there may glean what they will from my words. 1) How did you begin your writing career? Did you study journalism? My writing career has been in the works since I first learned how to read. I’ve always been an avid storyteller, and the state’s former poet laureate, Kathryn Stripling Byer, commended my writing even when I was in kindergarten. There’s never been anything else I’ve wanted to do. I was always in the program for academically gifted students, and my teachers greatly encouraged my reading and writing skills throughout. In high school, my AG placement continued. I had three amazing teachers (one I had for two years). I joined the yearbook staff my junior year and was editor my senior year. We finished early — and turned a profit for the first time ever — so I us

Next month I will turn 31. My hope is for the gift of a diagnosis. Upon experiencing a stomach rupture from unclear causes on April 24, I was jolted out of the comfortable lull into which my family and myself had settled in terms of my health. Things had been quiet, perhaps too much so, and it is patently easy for one to forget the seriousness of one's medical condition when not actively in crisis. I myself have near daily reminders be they the fact that I am still (and for all appearances always will be) deprived of the sensations of pain and temperature on my right side; the nystagmus in my left eye that affects my vision and often leads me to close it so that I may better focus; the tremendous bypass scar across my mid-section that traces my ribcage; the adjacent scar from my kidney removal; the random aches and pains and twinges and generalized weakness that begin each day; and now the 11-inch scar that splits my abdomen, curving around the right side of my belly button, whi