Hello! I'm L.L.H. Harms, whom everyone else knows as Laura, Mama, Mom, Mother, Lala to my grandchildren, and Auntie Lala to most others.

     Until recently, I had never been on social media. So posting, trying to sell books, being on podcasts, and "putting (myself) out there" is a concept that makes my brain itch. Brain itching is one reason I write to begin with. 

     I began scribbling thoughts and observations when I was ten years old. (Yes, that's me, rocking that 70s bowl-cut.) I'm a Gen X-er. As a child, there was no therapy. Adults met issues with "What are you whining about?" These inspirational words were delivered on a cloud of secondhand smoke and the promise that Jesus had a plan.  

     As I developed asthma and waited for Jesus to arrive, I began to write. Writing was a better solution than hearing, "Oh, you think that's bad let me tell you about the war..."  Which war, no idea, but I knew it had to be more traumatic than my school bullies or my irrational fear of vampires.

     Yeah, I know, who could ever bully a girl with  hair and glasses like that. If I could go back in time I would tell my younger self not to worry. The hair and glasses get better. 

     Writing became my therapist. A blank sheet of paper that offered space, no judgement. As I grew older, fear of discovery caused me to change the names and places into fiction. Stories became the vehicle that offered my childhood its only form of control.  Feelings and thoughts set free to form a rebellion against the expected conformity of my upbringing, if only in a notepad. A rebellion built by ink. 

     Fear had stopped me from actively trying to get published. Until the realization that in a few years, will be my 60th trip around the sun.  Years of boxing up stories, essays, poems to be read upon my death stopped when my son gave me the best advice: my own, just do it and get on with it already. 

     So here we are. Main rule: opinions and critiques welcome; meanness and nastiness, hard pass. If you write me remember, you're writing to the little girl wearing the orange plaid dress. I carry her where ever I go.

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