Lucy

I am a writer and stay-at-home mama living in Seattle, where it doesn't rain as much as non-residents think.  It is more of a fine, chill mist that dampens everything.

I began writing, when I created the cartoon, Zero, as a seven-year-old.  Zero had zero of everything, especially luck.  I was a very depressed child.  The strip ends with her hanging herself, but she can't get the noose over her big zero head. 

I'm much more optimistic these days thanks to the marvels of modern psychiatry.  Thank you Paxil! Still creating poetry, some of it published in journals, most of it not. 

The big change in my life now - I want to contribute to the familial money pot.  I think writing is a good place to start.  I don't see dollar signs in poetry, so I am thinking of freelancing, even if it means writing greeting cards and realestate ads - just something that earns a little dough.

My favorite poets include Anne Sexton, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Yeats, Seamus Heaney and Martin Espada.  Favorite fiction writers include Flannery O'Connor, Jean Toomer, Sherwood Anderson and William Styron.

For non-fiction, I like Karen Armstrong, Peter Mathiessen and David Foster Wallace, among others.

My children, conversations with friends, my childhood and random kindnesses from strangers are what influence my writing.  I enjoy seeing the world from the finely tuned grassblade with the shiny ant scaling it to the changes in the sky, how light enters weirdly as the sun goes down.

Lucy