Poker & Promise by Pippa Greathouse

It all started with my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. J. Ever the elegant, perfectly coiffured lady, gave us an assignment to write a short story and read it aloud to the class. Mine was about a group of fifth grade kids who went on a weekend camping trip, and encountered a grizzly bear. When it was my turn, I read.

Poor Mrs. J! I began to notice a twitch around her left eye sometime around the approach of the grizzly bear. By the time the body parts began flying, it had increased to her mouth, and her whole face was as white as a sheet. But she was a trooper, and stayed upright throughout the whole story.

However, the other kids loved the story, because it was about them. Suddenly, I was hooked!

Writing continued throughout Junior and Senior High, in the form of space stories, then spy stories, and by the time I reached high school, had turned into romances! Every year ​when spring fever hit, I would take my notebook outside at lunchtime, and soak up the sun, and write. Then I would take it home and type it up on onionskin paper, on an old Underwood typewriter (Yes, I know I'm old! But you know what? That's okay.)

I also write under the name Tessa Carr