I tend to write stories that use names of people I know. Dana Thomas is an actual person, although she’s not a tall blond white guy, she’s a BEAUTIFUL (inside and out of course), not so tall African-American woman with whom I went to college with, and have kept in touch via email for the past … well I’m not going to give up either of our ages, but it’s been a while. We have a couple friends in common, and we’ve seen each other from time to time at weddings and what have you. When I wrote this story using her name, I didn’t think it was anything but a small tribute to a pretty cool person, but she later wrote me that she’s a lot like the Dana Thomas in the story, in that she gives to people so freely, and it often seems to go unappreciated. She had actually related to the character in the story … which was odd for me, and really cool. So besides writing the story using her name, I dedicate it to her as well.
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