Join Therese Gilardi for the whole week

Thank you kindly, Sherry, for having me as a guest. Your gracious hospitality embodies one of the things I like best about being a writer – I get to interact with a supportive group of colleagues.
It's a pleasure to have you here all week, Therese.

Therese Gilardi is a romance writer, poet and essayist living in the hills above Los Angeles. Therese's poetry and short fiction can be found online at "Literary Mama", "The Dirty Napkin", and "The 13th Warrior Review". Therese's work can also be found in the books "Knowing Pains" and "So Far and Yet So Near: Stories of Americans Abroad", as well in print magazines and the upcoming issue of "Onthebus". "Matching Wits With Venus", Therese's paranormal romance about a Hollywood matchmaker and the Roman god Cupid, will be released by Astraea Press in late April. Therese is currently writing a contemporary romance, a chapbook of poetry inspired by the paintings of Mary Cassatt, and a memoir of her years as a writer, wife, mother and metro aficionado in Paris, France. Therese loves blue cameos, easy guitar riffs, and the perfect ratatouille.

Why I Write
When I tell people I’m a writer, one of the first things they ask is “Why?” Why indeed – what compels some of us to commit to writing the hopes, dreams, aspirations, passions, and fears many of us have but are loathe to admit, even to ourselves? I believe it’s because we writers are driven by a desire to record for ourselves, and each other, what we’ve seen, as though we’re filing eyewitness accounts of life. For me, the world just doesn’t set right until I’ve got my notebook in hand and the pen is flying across the paper.
As a girl, I wanted to sink my teeth into every experience I saw or even imagined, as though setting upon a piece of lemon meringue pie. I wanted to dive beneath the surface and know the “why” behind everything that happened. And if that “why” wasn’t compelling, I wanted to write a much more interesting story than the one in front of me. I spent my childhood (all right, I admit I engage in this lovely pastime to this day) inventing dialogue and settings for everything and everyone I happened upon. Even my dog and the weeping willow outside my office have their own fascinating stories.
This desire to make sense of my world via the page led me to write poems, essays, short fiction and now a novel. Since 2002 I’ve been sharing my vision of the world with readers. I’ve been an avid reader all my life. For me reading is a delicious means of seeing the world through the eyes of another, a way to compare experiences and challenge myself with new ideas. The more I read and write, the more I want to record and reinterpret the world around me. Several years ago my husband and I and our children lived in Dublin, Ireland. One of the garages in our neighborhood was spray-painted with graffiti that read, “I WOZ ‘ERE”. That’s why I write. To leave behind a permanent record that I was here.

Order "Matching Wits With Venus", available in late April, from the following fine retailers:
http://astraeapress.com
http://amazon.com
http://barnesandnoble.com
http://allromancebooks.com
http://omnilit.com
http://efictionbookstore.com.

Please come back tomorrow when Therese asks 'Why Romance'?