It was a warm winter night. Snowflakes dancing side to side, but eventually down, always down. It was quiet. Inner turmoil wanted nothing with silence. Loud yet voiceless. The world could not hear me. I could not hear me. Choice, there was none. Words… had to become my lifeline.
If pain never found its way to expression, its dying breath would be swallowed by silence.
Then came graduate school. Lusting is not lasting. Developing a true love for writing proved both draining and rewarding. I became an academic writer - countless hours reading, thinking, drafting, and redrafting. Inspired profoundly by "The Elements of Style," originally published in 1918, this authoritative guide has remarkably withstood the test of time. My pursuit of clarity and brevity became relentless. Quoting from “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. (p. 23)
Lilly Anne Wolfson is my children’s book pen name. I see myself as a cross-genre, cross-phenomena, boundaryless creator. Quite the proclamation, I know. But I mantra this thing to death. Let’s be honest - Uri Shinsky doesn’t exactly conjure up fluffy clouds, rainbow giggles, and cozy puppies. So I went searching for a name that felt gentler, warmer, and sweetly familiar. It took some time and effort to come up with Lilly Anne Wolfson, but it fits like cozy pajamas on a rainy day. My mother’s name is Lila. My father’s name is Vladimir. In Yiddish, it’s Velvel, which means wolf. So, Lilly Anne Wolfson is an encryption of Lila and Wolf’s son - me!
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