Later on, after studying journalism at Syracuse University, I moved to New York City and got a job in the children's book department of a publisher. (I had never taken riding lessons or even been on a horse!) So I put away my notebook and gave up my writing career at the age of eleven. And it didn't help that I didn't know anything at all about horses. By the time I got to the third chapter, I had run out of ideas for my story. Well, it turned out that writing a book wasn't quite as easy as I thought. So I decided to write a book just like it. At that point I was enthralled with Anna Sewell's Black Beauty. I got myself a notebook, sharpened some pencils, and went to work. That was when I decided to write my own book. By the time I was in sixth grade, I felt as if I'd read every single book in our small town library. After I finally got a dog, I moved on to horse stories and mystery stories. For a long time, I wished very hard for a dog, so I read all the dog stories I could find. I was especially fond of reading about certain subjects. And I read in the car, even though it made me carsick. I read by flashlight under the blankets when I was supposed to be sleeping. In the summertime, I would go to the library and come back with as many books as I could carry. I was seldom seen without a book in my hand.

When I finally came inside, I had another name: bookworm. That was because I loved riding bikes, climbing trees, and playing baseball with the boys in the neighborhood. When I was growing up in the small town of Rutherford, New Jersey, I was always called a tomboy.

Pieces of Me by Ann Garner