From a young age, I liked telling elaborate, sometimes exaggerated stories. In the sixth grade, I owned and operated a French restaurant in the tomato gardens of our schoolyard. I even wrote a menu: tomato salad, mud-pie, pebble stew, and tomato juice with parsley to garnish. The Tomato Bouquet was not a real business, but that didn't matter. Since then, I have written many short stories, published essays, tried photography, and drawn landscapes and animals. All this as a way to explain the world around me. As a writer, artist, and photo fiend, I tell stories the way a kid would. Detailed, expressive, and playful.