A life of Overcoming

Twenty-year-old Kayla Meyers of West Linn uses writing to overcome obstacles and share hope in her new book, “The Butterfly Paperweight”

By Nicole DeCosta

The West Linn Tidings, Dec 25, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Kayla Meyers, 20, of West Linn just completed her first book, “The Butterfly Paperweight: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories.” She writes stories on this computer in her kitchen.

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Although the kitchen is empty, 20-year-old Kayla Meyers is not alone. Meyers’ mind is the only thing cluttered in the white-walled, immaculate room. She types on a computer in the corner, overlooking her neighborhood in West Linn.

In her element, the petite Meyers blocks out the real world and creates a new one with each keystroke.

After just releasing her first book titled “The Butterfly Paperweight: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories,” Meyers wastes no time delving into new stories and meeting new characters.

“They just sort of come to me,” she said of the characters she writes about. “I discover things (about my characters) through conversation. Their stories develop for me the same way they do for the reader.”

Meyers’ new book is a collaboration of stories, poems and characters.

“When I begin a story I don’t always know where they’re going to end up,” she said. “It’s very much a journey for me as well.”

“Journey” is a fitting word to describe Meyers’ life. Her laughs fill any room and her enthusiasm to share snippets from her book is inspiring. But Meyers couldn’t write her way out of some of her real life hardships growing up.

“In my five-year-old brain I thought everyone visited the hospital frequently and had countless doctors,” Meyers wrote in the first chapter. In the book she described herself as two people, “plain old Kayla and Kayla with Spina Bifida,” a developmental birth defect resulting in an incompletely formed spinal cord.

Meyers has had 37 surgeries for her condition, which causes the spinal cord to stick out through the opening in the vertebra. Meyers said her condition is on-going, affecting her kidneys and bladder.

“I’ve also had my spinal cord untethered several times,” she said.

From a young age, Meyers enjoyed reading so when a friend suggested that a 7-year-old Meyers start writing, it was “a revelation,” for her.

“And it’s always stuck with me,” she said. “On the Internet I discovered several different writing communities where you can post your work.”

WritingRoom.com – a place for aspiring writers to share and encourage one another – searches all writings posted each month and staff chooses a Discovered Author. Meyers joined the Web site in April.

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