Allow me to introduce...

I have hinted at some big news and I am sure my new picture has not gone without notice. I have also hinted at being very busy writing and while much of my writing has been for Columbus Living Magazine and a few other websites, but I have also been very busy writing some fictions off and on and I have been even busier writing poetry.

Now I am sure some of you may be wondering why I have not been posting it here. Well there are a lot of reasons. Some of them good ones and some off them just plain silly. I will outline some of them.

In part I was shy about putting my creative work on the net. What if it sucked? What if it was no good. What if people did not like it? What if I could not sustain the pace?

Well my poetry does not suck. It is intensely personal, very powerful and actually surprising. I never thought of myself as a poet. I wrote poetry in college and then when I got out into the real world I stopped. About a year ago, I started writing poetry again and well I have not stopped. I have written enough to fill a small book.

Some of it is playful and fun and some of it is intensely emotional and I think all of it is a fair representation of me and who I am. I am so proud of my work and with the encouragement of some very great friends I have published my poems in a book. Celebrated Deliberations is available at this moment at LuLu.com. I have published the book under my pen name.

My pen name is very special to me. I chose it after alot of thought. I decided to go public with my work with a pen name for a number of reasons. I think my pen name is more artsy! I want to create a thin wall dividing my writing life and my kiddos lives. Being a kid is hard and having to deal with a mom who is being creative and all that is easier I think if their friends cannot find my work surfing around the web. (ok or their friends parents. Let's face it people can be judgmental.)

I gave my pen name alot of thought. I wrote it out and most of all I wanted it to mean something to me. I wanted it to be as personally as my work is to me. So I picked the name with some care and some forethought. I write and have now published as Elisa Philips. I am using my maternal grandmothers maiden name and changing her first name slightly.

My grandmother was a great woman. Good cook, had wanted to be a teacher but the depression had other ideas. She wrote letters - really long ones. She also was a killer archivist. She wrote notes and documented anything and everything. She compiled a genealogy of her family - a pains taking process - especially considering it was before the Internet.

I think she would be proud of my pursuing my dream. I am not sure all the content of my work would be her style - but I am pursuing my dream, being authentic to WHO I am and I am hopefully going to touch and inspire others and I know for sure she would have loved that.

If you would like to check out my new book - follow this link.