“Have you always known you want to write a book?” This is one of the questions that I receive the most when I tell people what I am now doing since I left legal practice. The short answer?
Kind of. Ish.
I have always known that I wanted to do something that involved storytelling. See stories have been the driving force in my life for as long as I can remember. As a child, stories provided my escape. Being a nineties kid, escape was not social media or doom scrolling on a phone. My escape was grabbing my favorite Magic Treehouse, Nancy Drew, or Boxcar Children, and running to the backyard to read. I could (and often did) spend hours tucked up in a tree furiously turning the pages, following the magical adventures of my favorite characters, plowing through book after book. Even into those terrifying pre-teen years, books were my happy place. As my childhood best friend and I love to laugh about now, our sleepovers often consisted of cozying up under my blanket and reading (yes, each of us reading independently), the Warriors series, following Firepaw on his epic journey from outsider to clan leader.
Stories were also my connection to my family. Growing up, we were an every-night (as after school activities allowed) eating-dinner-together type of family. My mom is a heck of a cook, and she poured her love for us into every meal that she made. And boy did she make a lot. We were the household that kids gravitated to, and my mom’s rule was simple: when you’re over, you’re family. So, family dinners often consisted of a gaggle of extra kids seated around our round table, sending cups of milk flying when the lazy Susan was spun out of control. And during those loud, fun, hectic dinners, two things always remained true: first, the food was going to be plentiful (and incredible), and second, the entire time, stories (whether of a heroic leap to get the header in the weekend’s soccer game or stories from our family’s vacations to a ranch in Arizona and everything in between) were going to be told. Stories bonded my family, past and present.
As I got older, questions like, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” and, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” began pouring in. And I struggled. I was always someone with a plan. Even as a young kid, I was driven, ambitious. At the age of eight, I decided I was going to go to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursue a degree in “science,” and become a veterinarian (I already had my dorm room picked out). But when I quickly realized I was not, in fact, going to pursue “science,” I had to pivot. And, despite my high school’s coveted career aptitude test telling me I should be a chimney sweep three years in a row (no, I’m not kidding), I really left high school with no great plan for what I wanted to be—who I wanted to be. Even so, one thing always rang true—I knew that no matter what I did, I wanted my work to involve stories.
So, I went to college and focused on two majors that would allow my love of stories to shine. First, I majored in English Literature. That one is obvious—I wanted to read and learn from the greats. Second, I majored in Entrepreneurship. Being an entrepreneur (or advocating for other entrepreneurs), often requires understanding the story you are trying to tell and then learning to convey it effectively. But what did I want to do with those two majors. I was stumped, frustrated, and starting to feel the pressure of graduation looming ahead. Then, in one of those serendipitous moments that life throws at you, a professor of mine offhandedly said the following: Trust where your mind wanders to when you allow it room to do so. You would be surprised at how often that turns out to be the thing that lights you up. For me, that thing was always storytelling. My mind works in dialogue, transforming scenes I am a part of or witnessing into story-like prose on the fly. The more I thought about that advice and my natural inclination and love of stories, the more I decided I wanted to put my stories to paper. But did I want to leave college and try to write straight away? I decided no, I didn’t. I wanted to continue to build the tools in my toolbelt. I wanted to continue to find a profession that would allow my love of stories to prevail. So, I chose law school.
Candidly, I don’t have any great affinity for the study of law. And boy, do some people love it (shout out to my dear friend who would love to explain all aspects of Delaware law to you). But, law allowed me a profession I could read, write, research, think critically, investigate facts, and advise on best paths forward. It was a profession where I could support clients through hard times and be a trusted voice of wisdom and knowledge because I took the time to understand their story and learn how to portray it to a judge or a jury in an effective way. It allowed me to continue on my love of storytelling until I was ready to take the leap.
Well, I decided to take that leap in January of 2026. It was not an easy decision (see my Attorney to Author blog for more on that), but it was the right one. Now, I can focus on telling my stories, of putting pen to paper, and hopefully one day, my stories can inspire young readers to follow the thing that lights them up.