If you would have told me 20 years ago I would be publishing authors and poets I would have laughed so hard… I started off with the hopes of one day becoming a doctor. You know curing cancer or something major like that. I left my strict up bringing in Philadelphia at the age of 17 to live and study in New Orleans. By the time I left 7 years later, I was not as sure that becoming a doctor was what I still really wanted. I worked hard on getting my B.S. and M.P.H. from Dillard and Tulane Universities. I even got into medical school. It was while I was there I began to dream of putting on art shows. I was told I did not have time for such fantasies I had to push on. One night I had a dream about a phoenix, rising and soaring into the heavens and a name “Phoenix Rising Art Agency,” the name and first logo for my company were born. After the end of my first semester of medical school, I did not go on, I had to pursue my new dream. Several years later I opened an art gallery in Philadelphia right across the street from the Uptown Theater. We were part of a pilot project to revitalize the North Philadelphia area around Temple University. About a year or so into the project our building was burglarized. I moved out of my gallery space and began representing artist as an art dealer from home. It was actually a better fit because I was now married to a medical resident and we two small children. We moved from Philadelphia to Fayetteville NC after my husband completed his residency. There I went back to working in public health and doing art home shows. We moved to Augusta, Georgia one year later, in 1995. I continued working with artists helping them license and exhibit their work. In 2000 we began sponsoring a local poetry contest for middle school students. Today we showcase aspiring poets from all over the globe. I started P.R.A. Publishing in 2002. One project which includes some of my own writing titled View From the Middle of the Road has four editions, with a fifth volume in the works. We have published the work of a diverse group of authors from all over the world and even won a few awards along the way. Some times I hear from old classmates, they ask if I feel like I missed out by not becoming a doctor. I say I wouldn’t change who I am or what I do for all the money in the world! Check us out www.poetrymattersproject.org