WELCOME HOME

When I am lost in a small town, finding the main street helps me get my bearings. So the name "Main Street" felt just right when I moved from New Jersey to Kentucky in 1988, and started writing a column for The Murray Ledger & Times.

As a 4th grader at St. Francis School on Main Street in Metuchen, NJ, I won a poetry contest and was rewarded with a shiny silver dollar and a picture of St. Lucy. I bought my first record, "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors. The picture -- St. Lucy holding her eyeballs on a silver platter, empty sockets cast heavenward -- somehow ended up in my mother’s lingerie drawer.

That was the year I became a poet.

I have been a writer most of my life, but being a weekly columnist has led to opportunities and special projects in public radio, playwrighting and fiction.

I’ve come a long way from St. Lucy, but I still have a long way to go.

Constance Alexander is participating in Media Working Group's Open Studio: The Arts Online funded by Benton Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.