Letter to Readers: One of my oldest and most cherished memories is sitting on my mother's lap while she read to me. At first, there were nursery rhymes, then she moved on to fairy tales and soon I was able to read those wonderful words for myself. In the days of the Depression, I read books my parents owned, most beyond my years and understanding: Zane Gray, G.A. Henty, Horatio Alger, and many others.

Then we moved into town from the farm where I was born in Salem County New Jersey and I discovered the wonders of the public library. Shelves upon shelves of books. And the price was right! They were free to borrow for the asking. Today after many years away, I am back in the same town and once again belong to the same library. (The Woodstown-Pilesgrove Library)

Reading has always been one of my greatest joys and early on, I knew I wanted to write. When I went to work in Philadelphia in 1945, I enrolled in an evening journalism class at the University of Pennsylvania, World War II had just ended and a lot of returning servicemen had the same idea and the class was overflowing with them as they attended under the GI Bill. The professor was a veteran of the First World War and took the opportunity to compare wars. As we had just been through four years of a war where all our lives centered on life and death, rationing, First Aid Classes given by the Red Cross, air raid drills, and seeing blue stars changed to gold ones in our neighbors' windows, I didn't want to go there again. I was young and in a hurry to get on with my life so I dropped out and followed my other dream of marriage and a family. A few years ago, once again back in my home town, I thought about the dream of long ago and asked myself, "If not now, when?" and began to write.

-- Clara Stevenson