"Our July issue is filled with projects from some of our favorite designers. We asked them to create jewelry that was inspired by the places they call home. We'll have great designs from locales including California, New York, North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Texas, Wisconsin, and India (!). Plus, we'll have a special section of the coolest things editor, Cathy Jakicic, found at the Tucson bead shows this year."

I was so thrilled to be asked to participate in this issue I actually flipped up into the air, backwards, did a handstand and landed on my feet with my arms thrown out and my back arched like a gymnast. A ten!

I am sooo sorry no one got a video of that! Darn it, I would have been on the front of Youtube! I love publicity!

I will be representing New York. I have lived here all my life except when my family tortured me by sending me off to various schools.

I spent a lot of thought on New York. It is hard to explain what the pull is, unless you have lived in a place forever.

Did I want to do a piece of jewelry representing Manhattan, with which I am very familiar? Or possibly the town in Long Island, a foot from the Atlantic Ocean in which I grew up, and of which you all are incredibly bored?

I finally settled on an area in New York which means a lot to me, and has for thirty plus years. You will learn more when this lovely issue is published. Thank you, BeadStyle, for this great opportunity.