Hi, I’m MaryJustice.  Born and being raised in Huntsville, Alabama, I’m a 14-year old student at Challenger Middle School where I’ve been a choir member for three years and in the Legacy Choir, by audition, for two years.  I love school and am on the A/B honor roll. I love drawing, painting and photography and the performing arts. As a kindergartener I spent many a night in the VBC Concert Hall as my parents had season tickets to the Broadway Theatre League.  Peter Pan, River Dance and Smokey Joe’s Cafe were my favorites.  At age five I began seven years of dance instruction to include jazz, ballet and pointe.  After watching my mom in the role of Sandy in a local production of “Grease”, I joined her in two other productions, “The King and I” and “Scrooge.”   I attended two well known agency/schools for acting, runway and commercial modeling instruction. I was selected at audition last year to attend iPOP! 2008 in Los Angeles but had scheduling conflicts and have been invited back to audition this year for iPOP! 2009 in Las Vegas.  I love to sing and especially love writing songs. Mom tells me that I was singing in the womb.  I was born three months early…(I must have been anxious to get started singing!)…and one of the neonatal nurses asked my mother if she sang and hummed a lot to me when she was pregnant, because when the nurse passed by my Isolette incubator, she would hear me humming!  I started writing songs when I was about 5.  I would tell Mom, “listen to this song I just thought of” and she started writing them down in a book.  My mom, Marcia, is my best coach and teacher.  When I was 10 I met Cristina Lynn, one of our local songwriter/performers, at the Coffee Tree and she encouraged me to share my “God-given gift of songwriting”.   I was 12 the first time I sang at the Coffee Tree where I met the late B.D. Chase who welcomed me with a big smile and won my heart.  He told me to keep writing and singing (I still miss him).  It was at the Coffee Tree where I met Jim Parker, Donny and Susan Grace and the rest of the “family”.  Thank you, Tom and Kitty for making “your home, our home.” Although I write pop and inspirational, Donny Grace encouraged me to join the Nashville Songwriters Association, International (NSAI) and the monthly workshops where I met even more encouraging songwriter friends.  Donny suggested I enter the MOVA Songwriters Competition in Guntersville, AL.  Last year (2008) I wrote and entered “Live, Laugh, Love” in the MOVA competition and was awarded first place in the pop/rock category judged by published songwriters/entertainers, Janet McLaughlin ("Walk on Water", recorded by Loretta Lynn), Casey Kelly (co-writer of "The Cowboy Rides Away", recorded by George Strait), and Pat Upton (Spiral Staircase Band Member and co-writer of "More Today Than Yesterday").  Our NSAI chapter went on a field trip/tour to Music Row in Nashville where I submitted “Live, Laugh, Love” to “pitch to publisher” along with 85 other out-of-towners. It was exciting when my song, along with three others out of that 85, was kept by the publisher who has continued to be very supportive and encouraging as have my friends and NSAI “family.”  I sing frequently at the Coffee Tree on Bailey Cove Road on Wednesday Night Songwriter’s Showcase and Saturday Night Open Mic.  The regular singers at the Coffee Tree have become like family and although everyone is busy writing songs and performing themselves, they are always helpful and encouraging to me.  Thank you, guys, I love all of you. I enjoy skating, swimming, playing soccer, and dancing. At school we play a lot of dodge ball which I'm not very fond of.  I usually hide in the back.  During a very trying day at school, while in the middle of a game of dodge ball, I was inspired to write “Day By Day,” first place winner in the pop/rock category of the 2009 MOVA Songwriters competition held during Panoply April, 2009.  Judges were Janet McLaughlin, Pat Upton and Jim Parker, all published songwriter/entertainers.  It was exciting and very encouraging to bring home the blue ribbon two years in a row.  I do enjoy acting and modeling but have a real passion for singing and writing songs…music and lyrics.  I recently spent 10 hours in the studio with Johnny Okwu, Spark Productions, laying down tracks for six of my songs. I want to give a “shout out” to my grandmother, Sue Baumann and my uncle Marty Clark. Without them the time in the studio would not have been possible.  More studio time will be scheduled to add the vocals, but for now I sing with the CD tracks.  I plan to home school high school to have more time to get better at guitar and keyboard and developing my skills and knowledge of the craft of songwriting. Home schooling will free up more time to be available for workshops and performance opportunities. In addition to my own music, several songwriter friends have written songs they want me to record.  That’s very exciting! Visit this spot often… read my blog …look at my pictures….