Anne Basto

Where to begin….”not with a sentence fragment”, some would advise, but I did not want to fill this spot with dates and times and schools and jobs and reflections on my various career paths. I would only say that I remember a fifth grade teacher who had my class of ten year olds, writing stories, once a week. If your story was good enough, you would be allowed to go around to a few other classes to read it. I was frequently the winner of that competition, and one day Miss Stafford took me aside to tell me that I could not win every time, because other people were trying hard, and they needed to be applauded as well. Occasionally, someone would find me at recess to tell me how much they liked my story, and after I was no longer winning every week, I still had a fan base who liked my stories best.

I would remember through the years how happy I was to know that.

Later, when I was turning out dozens of commercials and program intros, and public service announcements , in addition to sales presentations and news stories and scripts for specials on everything from Modern Art to The Music of the Civil War, to Progress in Speech Therapy, II would think of writing a big story, maybe even a novel. Retired now and living on The Big Island of Hawaii with my husband and our two dogs, I am living the dream.

The big stories began to evolve with many years of people watching, and traveling around the world, always thinking of how the individual stories could be gathered into groups with plots, and sub plots and beginnings and endings and chapters that would transport the readers through a sort of contemporary looking glass where, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, you could glimpse other realities, personalities , and always some ideas that might be worthy of reflection or integration.