Hey!

My very first book was a handwritten, hand-drawn picture book about a brown dog getting lost and making its way home. I think I was in Kindergarten. Since then, I haven’t stopped writing. Sure, there’s been periods where I have been busy, where I’ve lacked motivation or inspiration, or when I simply am working on other creative projects. But there has never been a time where I didn’t have stories, books, poems, and characters floating around in my head. I’m a writer.

In middle school and high school, I submitted short stories to writing contests, researched the publishing industry, practiced writing query letters for books I had yet to write, and read my very first craft book, Writing Magic, by Gail Carson Levine.

Although I started writing countless book ideas, I didn’t finish a full draft until after my first year of studying Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University. While most of my friends had gone home for the summer, I was still living in my college town, working my part time job and writing as much as I could. The exhilaration I felt writing “The End” can never be matched. I’ve written “The End” in a novel twice now, and both times felt like my greatest accomplishment.

I always thought I only liked to read and write young adult fantasy adventure novels. And while I do love those above all else, college expanded my horizons to include poetry, literary short stories, and creative nonfiction essays. I write poetry about my home region, the Puget Sound, and my experiences growing up near the water. My short stories are still fantastical, but let me express the strange parts of my imagination with more focus and exploration. As far as nonfiction goes, I’m still figuring out exactly what I am doing, but I’m really excited about it. Creative nonfiction is more freeing than I expected, and some of my favorite pieces of writing recently have been nonfiction.

So with that, my current projects are as follows:

1. A YA fantasy adventure novel. I’m working on the second draft, which is absolutely killing me. But I love my characters and the story I’m telling, so I plunge through edits despite wanting to curl up and hide from my red pen.
2. A poetry collection about western Washington and identity. It wasn’t originally my aim to write a collection, but when every poem happens to follow that theme….
3. Exploring my nonfiction. I’m not writing anything in particular. I just started writing nonfiction this year, so I’m not putting any expectations on myself except to practice and figure out what I like doing and how to do it.

As far as the rest of my life goes, here are a few tidbits about me:

1. I love dance and music. I cannot dance well, and I am only beginner or intermediate at the guitar, ukulele, piano, and voice. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying it. Not every hobby needs to equal mastery. I recently started tap classes and am loving it.
2. Chicken in all presentations is my favorite food ever. Chicken pot pie. Chicken nuggets. Shredded chicken tacos. Fried chicken. Popcorn chicken. Chicken and dumplings. Chicken noodle soup. I love it all.
3. My sister is one of my favorite people.
4. I minored in German in college. (No, I’m not fluent, yes, I’m trying to be.)
5. I love to travel, both within the US and abroad. My favorite place in the world is Heidelberg, Germany.
6. I love cats.
7. Fun drinks are the best way to become my friend. Lattes. Matcha. Hot chocolate. Lemonades. Italian sodas. Juice of any kind. Chocolate milk. I love beverages.
8. I hate melted cheese and most cheese in general. I won’t elaborate because I don’t think cheese deserves the attention.
9. I’m a huge Harry Potter, Strawberry Shortcake, Tangled, Pride and Prejudice, and New Girl fan.
10. I can touch my nose with my tongue quite easily.

I hope you decide to stick around with me here on this site as I talk about books, writing, living with creativity, traveling, and life in my 20’s.