While not my "day-job" (by day I am an accountant in corporate America), I make time for storytelling through community and semi-professional theatre productions, independent film projects, murder mystery dinner theatre, and commercial campaigns by acting, directing, producing, fight directing, costuming, playwrighting, teaching, and serving on the Board of Directors for a local theatre. My inspiration is the audience. Their laughter, their surprise, their sadness, is all a reminder that stories connect us to each other and help us understand how to collectively be a better person, so that we can ultimately be a better community.

A key moment for me was after a school show where a young girl (who I did not know) ran up to me and just hugged me. (I was dressed as a Kangaroo for a Winnie the Pooh production.) She said no words...she just had the brightest smile on her face while giving me the biggest hug her little arms could manage. This work has given me and my family (my husband and daughters are also storytellers) a community of fellow artists and arts enthusiasts who we also proudly call friends. A group of people committed to keeping conversation and connection and community alive. For me, being American means being able to exercise my first amendment right of free speech; to speak a story and have others listen with the goal of betterment.