Some stories refuse to stay buried.

I'm Dione — former Madison Avenue ad exec, boy mom to four, GenX to the bone, and finally doing the thing I've wanted to do my whole life: write.

I'm working on a novel about my grandmother, a 13-year-old British girl who survived 37 months in a Japanese prison camp during WWII. She played basketball to stay alive. She dragged her unconscious father to safety during liberation. She was 4'11" and full of fire.

I'm also writing about the stuff that doesn't fit in a history book — second marriages, floor showers, matching yoga sets, the Costco car wash where I go to fall apart, and why a playlist called "Penis Island" is the most accurate description of my life.

Some stories are inherited. Some we survive. All of them deserve to be told.