Cassandra M. Vanhooser, a travel writer for Southern Living magazine, reflects on her work and on her life:

I never actually decided to become a writer. I grew up on a dairy farm in middle Tennessee and had planned to work in the cattle industry. In fact, I received my degree in agriculture from the University of Tennessee.

In many ways, though, I am much more suited to this type of work. I lived the hours I spent as a child sitting on the front porch listening to my grandmother's stories. I have great empathy for people, and I rarely forget a face. And somewhere along the way, I grew to love words.

My favorite stories are about people. I have interviewed famous people, but the ones I really enjoy are everyday people just like you and me. Everybody has a story, and I have a knack for getting people to share their lives with me.

If the fun part is talking to people, the hard part is sitting down to write the story. Writing is a solitary pursuit, and I am a very social person. I have difficulty disciplining myself to sit down and write. I am always glad when I successfully complete a project, though. I love having written.

I currently work as a travel writer for Southern Living magazine. Travel writing is exciting because my boss pays me to take vacations and then write about them! It's almost like writing the "What I Did Last Summer" paper that your teacher asks you to write at the beginning of the school year. The trick is to capture a place using all of your senses. I want my readers to feel as if they are standing right beside me when they read my story. Still, I don't give all of the details because there needs to be something for you to discover when you visit.

Museums can be the most dull and boring part of travel writing, but the National Prisoner of War Museum in Andersonville was an exception. The photographer and I arrived bright and early on a Monday morning. "What are our chances of finding an actual POW at this place at 8:00 on a Monday morning?" I grumbled as we pulled into a nearly deserted parking lot.

As fate would have it, there had been a meeting of former POWs in Tampa that weekend, and many of them stopped by the museum on their way home. Mr. Diehl, the man I write about in the story, was among the first to arrive. As soon as I met him, I knew I had to tell his story. He was gracious enough to let me do so.

My visit to the POW Museum made me proud to be an American, and I really understood for the first time how much freedom costs. Here was a man who spent months in captivity so I could be free. I wanted every reader to feel the overwhelming sense of gratitude, but it was difficult to reach down inside myself and find the right words to describe those feelings. The hardest part was being honest enough to tell millions of people that I cried brokenheartedly in a public place! I wrote and rewrote this story until I felt it honored America's POWs.

My family still operates the dairy in Tennessee, and I travel there often to be with them and to enjoy the country life. I read, cook, garden, and take seriously my role as aunt to five nieces and a nephew. Plus, I am a sports fanatic. I love almost every sport, especially Tennessee football.