Jennifer Gennari: Hello. My name is Jennifer Gennari, which rhymes with canary. That's what I always say, although the Italian pronunciation is jen-AHR-ee. It's hard to be different and that's why my Italian great-grandparents Americanized it. They immigrated in the early 1900s and settled in New Jersey where they experienced some discrimination. Two generations later, all that is gone and both my brother and sister introduce themselves as Gennari. But I like the sound of my two names together and when I was a teenager I had fun drawing my name with the repeating E-N-N from Jennifer, and again in Gennari.

Playing with words, the way they sound and making lyrical sentences is one reason I'm a writer today.