Grandpa
Monroe, Beth

BETH: Well I guess I would say that I've always loved to read and to tell stories so that's been a big factor in loving to write and being here as a graduate student studying writing. I remember as a little girl every day after, I guess it would have been preschool I'm not really sure, I would climb into bed with my grandfather who was sick and bed-ridden and we would always read books together. He would really read to me. One day I remember saying, "Papaw, I want to read." And I was reading to him and he said, "Beth are you reading to me or are you telling me what you remember is on the page?" And even though I wasn't only three or four or however old I was I remember thinking, well there's a difference that I had not thought about before. And from that moment on I was determined to actually read the words and be able to do that. Also I grew up here hearing cool stories from my dad and his best friend about just their growing up experiences as boys and I love to tell stories and I love to hear stories and it's just so neat to be able to think about how you want a story to sound and to put it into words on a paper, to type it out, to think it through. It's so neat and fulfilling and you just feel so accomplished when you've gotten it all down and you can share with people and that's what's so cool about it I think. That's actually what I'm doing my thesis on is a nonfiction memoir type project where I'm kind of telling my childhood stories because I know one day if I have kids those are stories that they're going to want to know too. So I guess that's it.