Roger Canaff is a former prosecutor and current consultant and legal expert on special victims issues, born in New York City and raised in Northern Virginia.Stephen King once dedicated a novel to his children with the words "Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie." That's a beautiful sentiment, and Roger suspects that when he reflects on the gifts in his life, the gift of simple storytelling, either a story he's enjoyed or one he's told, ranks as high as any.The reality of sexual abuse in early childhood drove him, in a way, to what he considered a calming distance from the concept of truth. But in boomerang fashion he returned to it with a vengeance and became a special victims prosecutor in the late 1990s, a career he loved dearly and still takes part in as a trainer and consultant.Like many who write, he probably has little choice. There's magic in the ability to tell a tale; he's known this since he was a toddler. Truth telling, in particular, is power; a disarming, vivacious force. He told that to the victims he worked with - hundreds of them, mostly children - when preparing them for testimony. From their shared memories and his own, he has created fiction that he believes is the very essence of myth: Every bit the truth inside the lie.He's blessed with a loving wife, a beautiful nephew, and the best childhood friends - still steadfast after 40 years - that he could have asked for to help pull him through. Newer friends have appeared and decorated his life in layered ways he never thought possible. He believes in a God and still practices as a left-leaning Catholic, although with strong Deist tendencies. Lately his most tempting image of God is one of a frustrated artist and the cosmos a palette. Magnificent. But still striving.It's a joy-filled, messy thing. He can only smile ear to ear at the chance to be a part of it, every day, until the last one meets him. Until then, he'll tell stories. Thanks for reading this one.