Maxi's woman cave       

Maxi Malone doesn't remember the Staten Island area where she was born.

There is no memory of sleet and snow, only the showers and sunshine of South Florida where she grew up.

She does recall a period of time spent in an orphanage and foster home. The memories are not happy ones. Maxi tries to leave them behind but they follow her to Miami.

With no one to turn to, she withdraws, until ...

She enters school and discovers the magic pencil. The joy of writing fills her up. It causes problems in class at times; she wants to write stories not essays.

Maxi doesn't talk about the writing, so no one knows. Except that time her mother came into the bedroom when she was writing, "Was I Adopted?" She wasn't. The family had only been separated for a few years.

The writing is always there, molded into her being. Only Maxi isn't aware; she takes it for granted. In sixth grade there is a prize for the first one to memorize a poem.

She wins—because Maxi is always writing poems and short stories. Later, Sunday School lessons are taught with stories she writes.

In the middle of her first novel Maxi is shocked to realize that this is not new. She recalls holding that first pencil, writing that first complete sentence, creating her first story—it's who she is.

Maxi Malone, she laughs, long may she write!