Photo by sixninepixels

I never could play a song or sing a note, but I wanted to be a rock star.

I borrowed a friend’s keyboard and plunked away at the beginning cords of “Lean On Me”, and obtained a book from the library about teaching myself to read sheet music, but the two events didn’t overlap, and I was left plunking and reading at opposite corners of time.

In the eighth grade, I resolved to write music from my own hand and ended up with rudimentary poetry. It was the catalyst that bore me through early adulthood.

For many years, I’ve written in fits and starts. It’s what I know and do. The thing I’ve quit quitting.

With the birth of my second child, I swore to see it through.

I am the youngest of nine children, but in some ways I was raised as the only child of a single mother. The life I had and that of my siblings was very different. There is a wide spread in age. My birth order and the events surrounding my early life inform much of my writing process and the views I hold so strongly to today.

Although I have gone to school for Creative Writing, I have no degree. I write memoir, personal essay, and most recently, fiction. My first anthology, “The Dead Shoe Society”, was released in December of 2011. I am currently writing a novel.

–E. Victoria Flynn

Write Hard, Die Free