My first Geeky memory is of lying on the floor in my family’s den with my nose buried in a book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales while all the other kids in the neighborhood were out playing hide and seek. No game they played could even compete with the wonder of that book, of the absolute rightness I felt when reading that book.
A year or so later, I was busted during my fourth grade class for hiding a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in my history book so I could read it while everyone else was doing independent study. (And no, reading C. S. Lewis did not qualify as independent study, although it should have considering I am now a children’s fantasy author! The injustice!)
In high school, when other girls got excited and flush-cheeked over their escapades at that week’s football game or school dance, I got excited and flush-cheeked over hours spent researching in the library.
Yes, you heard that right. Research. In the library. Got my heart to fluttering excitedly. From that point on, I spent a large portion of my recreational hours collecting odd historical bits and strange random knowledge like a bee collects pollen. The more time I spent researching, the more I learned that I was fascinated by those places where magic and reality met: old myths, ancient civilizations, long lost societies, and forgotten religions.
So that’s my geek specialty and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to combine them into a career. My family has been known to tease me and claim that I write simply to have an excuse to do research. That is patently untrue. I write to get rid of the voices in my head. As to whether that makes me a geek or mildly disturbed, I’m not sure…
