Sonya Faye Pope was born in 1969 to Shelly and Robbie Hart; she was the first of born of the third set of twins, the ninth daughter out of 11 daughters, and the 15th born into a family that ended up with 18 children. Pope was born into a situation beyond her control, a situation that had the deck stacked against her, but now her star is rising, and she doesn’t intend to let it stop.Pope, a high school dropout, who came back to school to better herself, has published a book of short stories, essays and poetry, called, “From the Walls Inside: Recorded Conversations with Myself.” Overcoming many odds, Pope returned to school in 2003 in an attempt to break what she calls the generation curse. Out of all 18 children only seven graduated with high school diplomas.”It’s hard breaking generation curses,” Pope said. “I don’t care I am going to break them. My ultimate accomplishment is to graduate from college.”When Pope started school at Skyline, she never liked writing or poetry, but there were teachers that pushed her forward, two in particular were her English 836 (English Writing Development) teacher, Dr. Bessie Vaughns, and her Humanities 106 teacher, Dave Mechler. Her humanities course started her on her journey of writing when she was allowed to write about her life as opposed to the reading assignments. One of the biggest reasons for her success, Pope claims is due to the fact that she was forced into Dr. Vaughns’ English class. “The Lord has blessed me with her (Dr. Vaughns)”, Pope said. “She allowed me to know there was a well within myself that I could draw from.”Pope believed a lot of her success stemmed from the strict manner in which Dr. Vaughns taught. Pope never actually wanted to take the class but due to scheduling was placed there reluctantly. She had heard that Dr. Vaughns was a tough teacher, but without the discipline, encouragement and motherly advice, Pope thinks she never could have done what she has.The inspiration for her book came from the experiences throughout her life. Living in the midst of struggle helped develop the person she is today. Her childhood was difficult at times, and she had very little privacy. “It was fun but at the same time it was hard,” Pope said. “You didn’t have your own identity.”Even if she didn’t have an identity she said she always had fun being with her siblings, even though the fun was just a cover up for all of the hurt in their lives. She details events in her life like that throughout her book, like in the poem, “Light Before my Eyes.” Her mother worked hard as a laundry supervisor at the Shriners hospital to support her family, but the biggest influence from her family was her late, oldest brother Lonnie. One of the events that she best remembers about Lonnie, is when she was in seventh grade, Pope was having trouble spelling and saying the word, “beautiful.” Her brother worked with her until she knew the meaning of the word as well as how to spell it.”He taught me the courage to find the beauty from within,” Pope said.Although she finally published the book she had to struggle to get it published because she wanted to do self-publishing. Finally AuthorHouse Publishing picked up her story and got it on the shelves.”I wanted the book to mean more to my readers,” Pope said.Currently Pope is working on a second book with two of her daughters, Brittany and Shakari. Brittany, a ninth grader has already written a book for her class although it hasn’t been published is helping write the book and Shakari is helping out with the illustrations. Currently Pope is working on a major in creative writing, and plans to graduate from Skyline with an Associates degree in creative writing, going on to transfer to San Francisco Sate University or Notre Dame de Namur College in Belmont. She plans on getting a masters in English, and start an organization called, Sisterhood Responsibility, which is an organization that would provide an outlet for women who need to be encouraged much like Pope did. “Now that I understand the power of the written word, I want to encourage young people,” Pope said.Never having the intention to go back to school before, Pope considers this a major accomplishment, and said it was at the age of 30 when she finally realized her true potential. “Skyline has helped me grow into a woman,” Pope said. “It’s a tremendous blessing.”