I came to Medium from a platform called Cowbird, that was nothing but personal essays. Storytelling at its finest, from storytellers the world over. Sadly, the owner decided to close up shop, and left a bunch of us Cowbirders without a platform to tell our stories. Some of us flocked here to The Story Hall pub on Medium, which one Cowbird refugee started up. For the first year or so, I stuck with that one publication, as I wasn’t too sure about the rest of Medium. I didn’t think it was anything like Cowbird had been. Lots of articles about everything under the sun, lots of people wanting to sell me on how to go a million things better, but I didn’t see much good, old-fashioned, from the heart story-telling. Then, when I finally ventured out beyond our safe little publication and started sorting through all the articles that didn’t interest me, I started finding real storytellers out there. Over the past 8 months or so, I’ve found there’s tons of you, here. Real storytellers. Now, I feel like I’m home. I’d apologize for some members of my gender being such pricks about it, but that’s them, not me, so I won’t. I’ll just say, I’m delighted to be here, and keep the great stories coming!