Anora began writing in elementary school in diaries and letters. Being among the internationally mobile expatriat community, friends were always coming and going, just as she was always on the move with her family. Letters were vital links, threads holding the connection to the next address and next move. In those days, phone calls were very expensive. E-mail didn't exist. Telegrams were sent when someone was ill, getting married, born or dying. Every single word counted - cost money.
In high school Anora had a couple of poems published in the high school literary magazine. One of her teachers wrote on her project paper: "Write, write and write some more!" very encouraging words.
In the senior year of high school, in Italy, she took creative writing with an American professor from Massachusetts. She wrote her first short stories. Being a writer was such a lofty aim, an aspiration, perhaps as out of reach as some people's aspiration to be president or an astronaut.
In her literature class they read Proust and George Elliot. Proust wrote of the intimate moments of awareness and sensation, naming the experience of being alive, yet also with a sense of humor. Elliot wrote prolifically with some of the most powerful wonderful statements. They read Pascal's journal and she would wonder if her journals would ever be published and studied.
TS Elliot's Lovesong of J. Alfred Proofrock left an indellible impression, both for being beyond her initial understanding, and then for its lyrical and rhythmic power; the phrasing became part of her being, like the Victor Hugo poems she had to memorize in French school. "Doux rayons tristes et rechaufants. Lorseque'll etait petite encore, quand elle etait tout enfant..." recalled from memory, perhaps imperfectly. "Helas! Que Dieux m'assiste."