During ninth-grade English, my class was asked to write a superhero story. As an Italian whose nickname was “Netti," I drew inspiration from my background and developed a character named “Netti Spaghetti.” All superheroes needed a sidekick so I added “The Meatball Kid” to join “Netti.” The story was lost in the crush of many cartons moved from college and beyond. But I learned that Netti Spaghetti was me and stood for what I wanted in the world.

I grew up in northern Ohio, and graduated from the University of Akron with a Computer Science degree yet still sigh when my cell phone doesn’t work. For a time, I made my home in the Pacific Northwest until firmly planting my feet in a historic neighborhood in Cincinnati’s urban core. When I'm not writing, I'm walking the city’s fifty-two neighborhoods or finding and making connections in the community.

“I’ll Have Some of Yours is based on the award-winning blog, Find You in the Sun (www.findyouinthesun.com), where additional essays appear.

Writings have appeared in the Alzheimer’s Association’s Cornerstone, Erma Bombeck Humor Blog, Grief Becomes You: A Narrative of Loss, and Movers and Makers, and have received awards from Writer’s Digest, National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Sinclair College, and USA Book News.

Also available: I’ll Be in the Car: One Woman’s Story of Love, Loss and Reclaiming Life.