I think I was always a writer.

I was raised in Central Florida in a house with no air conditioning. Sometimes, on summer nights when there was no breeze and I found myself awake, I would carry a book, a piece of notebook paper, and a pencil into the hallway. There, I sat cross-legged on the cool terrazzo floor, writing until my eyes were heavy with sleep.

As a teenager, I walked through the mall listening to people’s conversations. Using what I overheard, I pieced together the events that could have led those people to that moment. Then, I would hypothesize as to what might happen to resolve the situation they were in.

I slowed down when the kids were little. During that period, time was short, and I didn’t have much energy left to create when I got them to bed at night.

When Mama got sick, she was home in Alabama. I was in Oregon. I wrote stories to make her laugh, to make me feel closer. I lost her, but I promised her I would keep writing.

Now, I write to understand people, to give voice to those we don’t often hear, to pull back the veneer of ordinary to reveal the real guts and grandness, to show that, whether we mean to or not, we touch each other’s lives.

These days I write novels, plays, poems, essays and short stories. In between, I am a doodle artist. You can even download some of my drawings to color. Just go to my website:  

cynthiarogan.com