An Exciting New Beginning and a Sad Ending

Although I’m enjoying being a full-time writer once again, I’m also dreading the day that school resumes, in less than a week. For the past five years I’ve been tormenting high schoolers, particularly 9th-graders, threatening them in my best Darth Vader imitation, “You will learn to love literature, or else.”

It would be a lie if I said that staying at home—locked up in solitary confinement—is driving me insane. It’s quite the contrary, in fact. Becoming intimate once more with fictional characters I said farewell to, albeit temporarily, has been an exhilarating experience.


Still, come next Wednesday, when the doors of Balboa Academy open for the new school year, I shall miss the zaniness, chaos, and challenges adolescents brought into my life.


And although I'm now embarked on new adventures in writing, I will always be thankful for the many things I learned from Balboa Academy’s high school students during those marvelous five years. Let it surprise no one, then, if, come next Wednesday, my mood tends to lean a bit toward melancholy.