About thirty years ago, four of us poets and artists, Gwynne Garfinkle, Mary Striegel, Ann Braeff and I, founded a group called Los Angeles Poetry Ensemble. We read our poems at different venues in the Los Angeles area and some of us traveled out of state to participate at readings and performances. We created a chapbook of our poems and art work, titled Under the Surface of Childhood.

It was an exciting, creative, and fun time.

After years of collaboration, we all went our own ways but kept in touch. Ann Braeff wrote poetry and taught school. Mary Striegel moved to Louisiana where she worked in different functions in her community and kept on writing and painting. Gwynne Garfinkle wrote and published poems and short stories and this year published her debut novel, Can’t Find My Way Home, through Aqueduct Press. I, myself, published poems in poetry magazines as well as a collection of poems, Path of Fire, through Finishing Line Press and then tried my hand at novels and wrote and published two trilogies, Family Portrait and The Wine Lover’s Daughter as an independent author.

At the reunion after ten years, it was exciting and inspiring to realize that all of us kept our creative dreams alive and made them reality. Unfortunately, Ann Braeff couldn’t meet with us this time, but I hope she’ll be ready to join us at our next get-together–and, hopefully, we won’t have to wait another ten years!

And the brunch was delicious!