On the back of old family photographs, in my mother’s handwriting, she often wrote “Loni.”

My mother died when I was thirteen, but she left me with something that has lasted far longer than I could have understood at that age. She gave me permission to be creative. She was creative herself. She loved ceramics and macramé, and she made beautiful custom lampshades. I remember not only the things she created but also the simple fact that creating was part of who she was. In our home, imagination was something worth having and creativity was something worth pursuing. She gave me that freedom, too.

Writing eventually became my way of creating. I build characters and places instead of lampshades and ceramics, but I like to think the impulse comes from somewhere familiar—the desire to take something imagined and make it exist.

When I decided to use a nom de plume for some of my writing, I wanted the name to mean something. I chose Loni Sullivan. It is the name my mother once wrote on the backs of photographs, carried forward in a different form. Every time I place it beneath something I’ve written, there is a little piece of her there too.

It is my way of honoring her memory, her creativity, and the mother who always allowed her son to imagine. And to create.