What a glimmering thing the circle of life can be! Scrolling Facebook, I came across a post from Aunt Myra on my Clare Cinnamon, Author page. First, the backstory:

~ ~ ~ I started writing when I was four and wrote so much the next decade that I rarely found time to read.

English teachers, of course, inspired me most, and all of them have a diamond in their crowns from Clare Cinnamon. It was the way Ms. Hilliard presented Where the Red Fern Grows by reading aloud in 5th grade. It was Ms. Clark herself, both drinking coffee and reading feverishly at her desk amid messy stacks of books. It was a poetry section included by Ms. Anderson in 7th grade, with extra spring in her step. It was Ms. Horton’s outstanding outline of A Tale Of Two Cities with a twinkle in her eye. It was Ms. Arnold, tenth grade, calling me in after class (I thought I was in trouble😉) to say, ‘You must write. I move your essays to the top of the stack because I can’t wait to read.’ It was Ms. Krueger wondering aloud how I understood Catherine Earnshaw’s character so well (I may NOT have been fooling Ms. Krueger…I was home at night dissecting characters to learn to write better characters).

Aunt Myra, one of the local high school’s best English teachers, was never my teacher. She was, however, my new aunt when I entered seventh grade at the height of my frenzied, middle-of-the-night writing spells. When I told her I liked to write A LOT but hadn’t yet finished reading a whole novel, I received Little Women from her for Christmas. Certainly it turned out to be one of the best books to read, but it was holding it, getting lost in it, and finishing it that compelled me to make a pact with myself: I would hold my own novel in my hand one day.

Thirty-plus years later, Lainey Cash, Book 1 is my first published fiction novel! So scrolling Facebook, I read this message from Myra on my author wall: Hey!!! You need to get a copy of Lainey Cash!!! It’s WONDERFUL!!!!!

I can’t stop smiling! The circle of life is a special thing. -CC