I began writing in my forties, after more than twenty years in engineering and consulting. On a rare two-day break for jury duty when I was still working as an economics consultant, I’d picked up a copy of The Best American Short Stories to while away the hours. I hadn’t read fiction for years. Perhaps because I was feeling unsure about my job—the long days, the pressure to climb the ladder—something clicked when I read the stories, and I recalled my long-forgotten love of books and writing. Soon I enrolled in writing workshops, and eventually a low-residency MFA program, where I studied craft—points of view, narrative distance, symbolism, and subtext. I read writers I’d never heard of or knew only vaguely. I learned to refer to novels and stories as “texts” and annotated them. I wrote prolifically and revised extensively, regarding the words pouring out of me with curiosity—I, a quiet, disciplined woman with a facility for numbers.