Reflections: Poetry, Essays, Flash Fiction, and Short Stories

Writing comes from the head but is born in the heart. Our hopes, joys, and sadness all find their way onto the page sculpted by our own experience. Friendship, love, loss, grief, decisions made, dreams extinguished, plans realized -these shape our lives and define who we are. This book is a reflection of my years as a print and broadcast journalist, copy editor, fiction writer, and occasional poet. Many subjects on these pages spring from personal experience.The poems come from times of wondering, searching and growing. The essays and short stories are largely fictional, and the characters are mostly composites.If you write frequently or only occasionally, it means you have something to say. Put your words on paper and share them. You never know how they might touch someone else and inspire their own journey. If you are uncertain, join a writing group.Wonderful encouragement came to me from fellow writers and poets in classes at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, sessions with Cöee with Poets and Writers and Netwest Bee City Poets in Hayesville, North Carolina, and critiques during Room for Poetry gatherings in Young Harris, Georgia