“Maybe the one good thing about having ADD, as I do, is that you tend to draw inspiration from whatever you are focused on at the moment. You get so deeply absorbed in your various passions that the house could fall down around you and you wouldn’t know it. In college I majored in art and English, unable to decide between the two. I loved the nonverbal element of art and found art making cathartic and less demanding than writing—there’s something so pure about not dealing in words. But mainly the one was a source for the other. A hundred years later, I’m a writer and a gardener. My garden strikes the balance I require. It’s the perfect place for the writer because it teaches patience and because it’s always a work-in-progress. An hour in the garden has a renewing effect, like meditation. Working the soil, my distracted brain breathes deeply. Beneath the brim of a straw hat, I weed out all the kinks in my plot.”
—Christina Shea, author of Smuggled (Black Cat, 2011)