By Kelly Seymour

The experience writing Under My Tree Roof was life altering for me. I remember I was in 7th grade, and sitting under a big tree in our backyard. Our assignment was to create our very own haiku. The words came quickly and easily. I loved it.

I loved my creative writing teacher. She was all flowy and always wore really bright scarves that seemed to whip around her when she walked around the classroom. She wore bright colored lipstick and was enthusiastic and well just lovely. I passed in my haiku and several days later she started to pass them out in our class. She put mine down on my desk and in great big letters BEAUTIFUL was written on it. She read it out loud to the class. I was so proud and have always remembered it.