About Me
My name is Allison. I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and grew up in Dallas, Texas. I have terrible eyesight. Blind as a bat, actually. This may seem irrelevant, but stick with me. During the summer before second grade, my parents discovered that I had memorized the eye chart to avoid getting glasses and the jig was up. Getting glasses was both the best and the worst thing that happened to me. On one hand, I could see every leaf on a tree — I had no idea that leaves could be so many different shades of green! Where I had been living in a French Impressionist painting, the world was suddenly crisp.
On the other hand, I entered a new school and, not being used to wearing glasses, was totally lost and had no confidence. Looking like Harry Potter was decidedly uncool back then. But the characters in my books were fascinating, reliable. So, I fell deeper in love with reading. I would spend hours perched high in the branches of the pine tree in my parents' front yard reading novel after novel, checking off summer reading credits and working toward those personal pan pizzas like it was my job.
I eventually found friends beyond the pages of books, but nothing took the place of a good story. My Italian father is a legendary storyteller. He can capture a room so completely with humor and attention to detail that you could hear a pin drop, as everyone sits spring-loaded in their chairs, hanging on every delicious word. About the time when my great-aunt made him eat a sandy SPAM sandwich on the beach. About the time when he narrowly escaped a bear during a camping trip in the mountains. About the time when a poisonous snake from the zoo wrapped itself around his orthotic shoe. About the time when ... About the time when ...
While he was telling stories, I was finding my voice. I sang, performed in musicals and show choirs, joined the Mock Trial team, and wrote plays for my cousins to perform at our family Thanksgivings. On cross-country drives, I dove into the classics: Wuthering Heights, Les Misérables, Pride and Prejudice. The human experience has always been fascinating to me. If there wasn't a three-foot-high stack of books by my bed from the library, something was off. I went to Vanderbilt University and majored in music and English, minored in French, studied abroad in Provence, fell in love with musical theater and a boy, and was graduated with honors.
After graduation, I moved to New York City and lived in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I worked as a writer for a major financial firm where I edited an investment magazine and wrote radio advertisements and press releases. It wasn't exactly artistically fulfilling, but I loved every second of living in the energy of New York. I threw snowballs in Central Park and bargained in Chinatown. I tried Indian food for the first time and listened to new bands in Greenwich Village. The boy proposed and I accepted. We dreamed of the future and planned where we would live. Then I watched the Twin Towers fall two seconds before it was on television and wondered how I was going to perform in a production of "Godspell" after work, while still breathing ash. When my apartment flooded in an unfortunate plumbing accident, I didn't need another sign. I moved to Chicago, where the boy was in law school.
We got married. After a couple of years working in other positions in finance, I quit my job to chase the dream of becoming an actress. I performed in small theaters around town and in a children's theatre traveling troupe during the day. (If anyone is looking for an adventure, I highly recommend traveling around in a minivan with four other actors and a complete set of "Charlotte's Web" in the trunk.) While most actors see children's theatre as a stepping stone to bigger things, I found that I loved it. I adore making children laugh. Or, really, making them feel so invested in a character that they open up a piece of their soul to the story. I realized that I inherited the storytelling gene.
The boy and I had a baby (a boy!). I kept acting. We had another baby (a girl!). I tried to keep acting. The boy was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and I moved into a new mode of juggling therapist appointments. We moved from our two-bedroom loft in the city to a house in the suburbs with a yard and a basement. We had another baby (a girl!). Acting wasn't a reality anymore. So, I sang at church and danced in my kitchen. We bought a minivan and had another baby (a boy!) and our family felt complete. But I didn't. I had things to say. And, even if no one read them, I needed to write them.
So, I started blogging about life, about what it's like to be a mom in this world. As my kids grew, what I'm writing about expanded, and I started to see bigger trends with kids beyond my four walls. I wrote a book about an ambitious but flawed tooth fairy, and then conceived the rest of the series. I watched bigger societal trends and how that influenced kids, which led to a book about a girl and a unicorn who explore other cultures together. I started work on my first novel, taking in the swirling life around me and finding what lies beneath. As a storyteller, I've learned that the stories don't stop coming. It's a matter of finding the time to be back in that pine tree (now metaphorically), and letting these characters come to life.
Thank you for being with me on this journey. Do I have a story for you!