ABSTRACT
Allow me to introduce myself. I like to say that I am an educator in addition to other things. I hate it when I hear teachers say I am “just a teacher.” In my classroom alone, I was an entertainer, motivator, actress, songwriter, counselor, doctor, guide, public speaker, manager, event coordinator, sounding board, IT, CIA, and the FBI. Honestly, what other profession is out here changing lives every day? As educators, we have a myriad of talents that other professions never even dream of! In addition, I am a mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, aunt, cousin, author, podcaster, and educator. I am a person who always knew she had a knack for writing, from the time I used to write silly poems about my big sister, to the time I wrote an 11-page paper in the seventh grade (sorry, Mrs. Johnson, I now understand how much of a pain it was to read all of that!), to the time when people paid me to write their papers in college (you can’t blame a girl for trying to get a side hustle early), all the way to the time that I became a sixth- and seventh-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher. What you could not tell me, however, was that I would ever become an author. I have always been the type of person to read, but be the person who actually writes books for people to read? Never!
