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               About the Editor of the RMH Newsletter
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I have always loved to write, but it was something that happened when I 
was very young that really encouraged me.  It was my mother's birthday. 
I wanted to figure out a present for her and I asked my dad what I could 
get for her.  He suggested that I write a poem.  So as far as I know that 
was my very first poem and I was about 8.  I wrote the poem and when I 
gave it to my Mom, she cried.  It was so amazing to me that I could make 
someone else feel emotions from just my writing.  So that's when my 
desire to be a writer started.

I've written over 600 poems.  It started off slowly - the birthday poem 
for my Mom and then a Valentine's Day poem for my brother, Charles.  Then 
one Christmas I was alone in the house and I wrote a poem called "A Day 
Before Christmas."  Well, I kept those poems that I wrote now and then, 
but I wasn't really inspired that often.  I did write a poem about 
Sunshine once on a paper sack while I was sitting in a park.

My life went on and I suffered a number of disappointments.  It seemed my 
main goal was love but it always seemed to elude me.  Then in about 1975 
when I was disappointed in love yet again I think I gave up.  It was John 
Denver's music that brought me back and that is why I am so devoted to 
him.  Album by album I found myself more in awe of John than I was the 
year before.  I had a number of dreams about him that were very vivid and 
when "Autograph" came out I felt like he was writing it for me.  But it 
was "Seasons of the Heart" that really got to me.  That album affected me 
so much that I decided to tell John my life story.  All during the summer 
of 1982 I wrote to him and it brought me to an awareness of myself.  I 
like to call it my "rocky mtn high" but for me it was the Summer of '82.  

Somehow I realized that John is right here on this planet.  Whether he 
reads my letters or not, it doesn't stop me from writing to him.  So I 
have been writing to John consistently - day after day - week after week 
since 1982 telling him about my life. (And he has written a few letters 
back to me too). 

To me John is one of the most beautiful people I know.  His music is so 
full of love that there was just nothing I could do other than to respond 
to that love.  My poetry, the RMH club and the www page are all an 
outgrowth of that love.  

I'm glad I have all of you to share it with now.

Love,

Emily