A 39-year-old, slightly awkward mom of two girls and two cats, a wife, and a corporate graphic designer. After years of grinding and taking care of everyone but herself, she was tired—and had lost track of who she was.

At her core, she’s always been a storyteller and a dreamer. She was the nerdy kid who filled notebooks with terrible Lord of the Rings fanfiction and hid them under her bed. Her poor mom read it and somehow still encouraged her to write. She had more fictional boyfriends growing up than real ones, and she loved stories and art with a passion.

Getting back into reading and writing reignited her soul and gave her an escape she desperately needed. Connecting with others who share her love of stories and creating—that’s what all of this is about. She doesn’t write to make money or become famous (she finds it hilarious that people actually think that). She writes to feel something, and hopefully, to make a few other people feel something too.

She released her first book, Of Light and Shadow, this past September. It still feels surreal to say that. She spent the last 15 years working on the story on and off, but it never left her. Health scares this past year made her realize she had to write it—or risk carrying that as the biggest regret of her life. So here she is: one wild year of writing and learning everything she could about indie publishing later.