About The Author

Elaine H. Leone

Elaine H. Leone

It was my father, so long ago, who introduced my tender ears to the rhythm and sound of rhyme and, throughout my eighty years, they have provided my lullaby.  He didn’t recite Mother Goose but, rather, Omar Khayyam and the sonnets and, often, Robert Service’s rollicking, ribald tales of  the Yukon. 

Nobody who knew us seemed  to think it strange to hear a little girl walking around reciting  “The Cremation of Sam McGee” or “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”.  Sometimes my father would deliberately misquote the author to see if I were listening, I suppose, at which point I would draw  up to my full height (I’m told),  and point at him with an accusatory, “NO!”  He got quite a kick out of that, I later heard.
 
It seemed natural to me to begin putting pen to paper and, being accustomed to rhythm and rhyme, my own verses came to life, starting when I was eight or ten years old.
 
Now, through “The Grandies”, I’m hoping other children will begin to enjoy putting pen to paper.  There is the IDEA that suddenly takes wing—the combination of words that nobody else has put together that warms the writer’s heart.  It may not always work out, but the PROCESS is divine.  I would be honored to read anything written by a child.
 
Songspinners, all of us,
Da, da, da, dum
Following heartbeats
As the words hum
Chuckling out loud
When the sweet lines link
Dropping our tears
In the sweet, sad ink
Happy composers
When the words come
Songspinners, all of us,
Da, da, da, dum.