Say as much as you can in as few words possible…

Thanks to an artifact tucked away by my mother, I know I aspired to be a writer at an early age. Probably not a copywriter, though. More likely a young P.D. Eastman or Dr. Seuss. Through repeated readings of classics like “Are You My Mother? and “Green Eggs and Ham,” I fell in love with words and storytelling.

In college, my heroes were James Joyce and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I wrote poetry (mostly bad) and fiction (even worse). But there was a flicker of hope when a non-fiction vignette I had written – about my dog sneaking into church – made my teacher laugh. She read it to the class. Encouraged, I kept writing.

After earning my English degree, I landed a job as a copywriter at a 60-person ad agency. I was thrilled. Someone was going to pay me to play with words every day? Beats busing tables at the Turks Head Club.

I’ve been writing copy ever since, as well as a monthly Op-Ed column for The Providence Journal, which published a new version of my dog vignette from college in 2015.

It’s no “Go, Dog. Go!” – another classic children’s book by P.D. Eastman – but I like to think he would have approved.