I’ve always loved writing, but in my senior year of High School, I had this amazing creative writing teacher - Mrs. Burbridge.  I got more into writing lyrics than short stories, and the music just came - I had a great piano teacher growing up as well - Mark Santos.  He got me into noticing which melodies hooked and why.  But a turning point in my songwriting really came after listening to Shawn Colvin.  There’s just something so relative and intoxicating about her music.  I listen to a lot of Pandora too - I find a new singer/songwriter everyday that I think, Dang, that’s a great song.  Now what can I learn from this?