Like ‘The Boss’ says, Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart.  It could be for anything – money, love, attention, whatever.  I chose the name Hungry Heart because at the time I began posting my stories here, I was in a period of upheaval and change.  I felt like there was an empty space in my heart, and I was hungry to fill it.  I was looking for peace within myself, a respite from my decades of depression and low self-esteem.  I was looking to make something for myself, of myself.  At the time, my marriage was shaky at best and I struggled with the effect it was having on my life in so many ways.  I needed to take care of myself and I needed an escape.  A safe place to explore my thoughts and feelings, my needs and desires.  About that same time, someone I cared for passed away unexpectedly, and that passing brought on a heap of unresolved pain from the past.  That was when I returned to my first love, writing.  At first, it was simply a means to express the pain of so much loss.  But as I started writing it all down on paper, it became so much more than that.  It was an expression of a deep yearning I’d felt for a long time, but couldn’t name.  A need for love, understanding, appreciation, and acceptance.  I began to write not just my thoughts, but stories; stories about the kind of love I’d never experienced and only dreamed of.  Few people find a ‘perfect love’, fewer still find their soulmate, I believe.  Yet the hopeful part of the hungry heart longs for that perfection, that all-consuming love that mellows with time, but lives on in the seat of the soul. 

The thing about writing fiction is that you can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything; the sky is the limit.  In my stories, I can be young or old, pretty or plain, have everything I could ever dream of and more.  All the unrealized dreams of your heart can come true on those pages in black and white.    I think I’ve come a long way, found some of what I was looking for during those darker years, but as long as I live and breathe, I’ll still be a work in progress.  I buried my dreams a long time ago, exchanging them for a life that left me feeling ‘less than’ for a long time.  Yet, in past several years, I’ve grown, my marriage is back on solid ground, and I’ve found my peace, and my passion, in writing.  I write for myself; for the joy it gives me and for the parts of me that I never knew existed until they appear on the page.  It took me a very long time to pluck up the courage to share my stories with anyone; I am pleased and proud to share them with you now.  I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.  May they give you hope…for more, whatever that may be.