I have to thank Mrs. Strickland, a fifth grade teacher in south central Los Angeles... I was a child that was motherless . I was moved around a lot . We didn't have foster care but I actually kind of cycled between several families - some biological, some not. And, I stuttered, a nd I was always a new student, always you know, very very shy . And she caught me writing and I used to just write stories that were basically things of whimsical stories about talking animals or something I wanted to