Noticing Newbies

Hi everyone, my name is Tracey. I'm in my mid-30s and live in Minnesota with my partner of 18 years. I've been reading since I was four years old (my older sister taught me), and I've wanted to be a writer almost that long. I've written some poetry, but I really like writing fictional stories based on my own life. I stopped writing in my teens due to privacy issues within my family, and I'm just now starting to get back into it. I'm taking a writing class through Writer's Digest University, and although it's been difficult, it's also been very fun! I would like to publish an autobiography or an autobiographical fiction, and if my wildest dreams could come true, I'd love to some day "be" the next Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou, John Douglas, Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson, and Charles Dickens are my favorite authors.