I knew I was a storyteller before I could write. Back when all I could do was doodle stick figures instead of words, I told stories. Playing with dolls turned into multi-part sagas that took days to act out, and many movie nights were spent explaining how I would’ve done it differently. With my debut young adult fantasy trilogy, the Chest of the Tide Series, out in the world, it’s odd to think back on those younger years. This is the story of how I got here.
As a toddler, I’d collect my family into the living room, place my little stool down, and select a picture book from a stack I’d brought with me. One by one, I’d pick up each book and point to the pictures, babbling in intermittent English as I told each story. Though I was too young to recall these nights, my parents tell me I wasn’t always telling each story straight. That I often made them up as I went along, merely using the pictures as inspiration. Many of my picture books revolved around fairytales and fantasy stories; tales of beautiful princesses, smiling dragons, and mystical lands that spurred my imagination. Somehow, my family endured my toddler-speak for hours before politely stopping me.
I was twelve years old on one fateful day at the Scholastic Book Fair. I walked in with curious eyes and walked out with a copy of Cinder by Marissa Meyer, a sci-fi take on Cinderella. Although technically not in the fantasy genre, this book became the key to unlocking the rest of my fantasy writing career. I became absorbed with this story filled with cyborg feet instead of glass slippers, an evil queen from the moon, humor that kept my belly shaking, and romance that swept me up in the prose. It had never occurred to me to try to write retellings. I loved how Cinder twisted Cinderella into a story all its own, so I decided to try my hand at fairytale retellings. The next few months produced dozens of drafts, including a Cinderella that transformed into the Evil Queen, a Little Mermaid stuck in a love triangle, and a Sleeping Beauty guarded by a mechanical dragon. Most of them I never finished.
I grew bored of fairytales after a bit. During the same year, I decided to retell something new, something I hardly knew anything about—Greek myth. And thus, my young adult fantasy trilogy, the Chest of the Tide Series, was born. Without Cinder, I wouldn’t have discovered my love of writing fantasy. Without Cinder, I never would’ve found Aedus Kamber—my hot-headed hero who took a chance on a siren’s promise and went on the adventure he didn’t know he needed. Well, we both needed it, I think.
However, it would be a long time before Aedus Kamber found an audience. The initial draft of Chest of the Tide was, frankly, a mess. I already had 50+ characters in the first book, most of which I realized weren’t necessary. I’d have to rewrite almost everything to get the story back on track. So, for years, I left Chest of the Tide on hold. I wrote other fantasy projects, some of which I know I’ll come back to. Others, we’ll have to see. But at this point in my life, I couldn’t even look at my messy draft without getting overwhelmed. I debated leaving Aedus and his world on the cutting block.
Thankfully, my mom didn’t let that happen. She told me to get back to it. “It was a good story,” she said, and somehow, that nudge was enough. I finally sat down, sorted through my excessive cast of characters, untangled the plot threads, and polished the words till they were ready to print.
In January 2020, a week after my birthday, I self-published my first book. I was a freshman in college, and I was ecstatic. After the next two years, when the pandemic was (somewhat) starting to wane, I released Whispers Haunt Us All in the summer. By 2023, I sent A King’s Black Heart off to the shelves, again in January, only a couple of days after my birthday. I was twenty-two, exactly ten years after I started to write Chest of the Tide. It felt poetic, locking that chapter of my life inside of a clean decade, filled with all the changing shades of the woman I had become.
I graduated the following May with a BA in Creative Writing, a minor in English, and a Certificate in Publishing. During my time with the University of North Carolina Wilmington, I made and lost friends, fell in love, attended countless club meetings, became an editorial intern for Dzanc Books, worked as a writing consultant for UNCW’s Writing Center, led as a managing editor for my major’s Publishing Practicum, said farewell to professors I could never thank enough, and acquired a position as a content writer post-graduation. I look back on that whirlwind of four years and wonder how on earth I managed to do it all while still getting out a fantasy trilogy at the same time. I’ll blame it on sheer willpower, ambition, passion, the endless support of my loved ones, and the occasional trip to Starbucks.
Now, I’m currently working on my next projects, and I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated about them on my social media. If you’d like to learn more about the Chest of the Tide Series, my upcoming fantasy books, or the various books I enjoy reading, be sure to follow me on Instagram, BookBub, and Goodreads. Thank you to everyone who has gotten me to this point. Everyone who read an early draft (whether that be a chapter or the whole manuscript), left a review, celebrated my book releases with emoji-filled texts or hugs or giddy screams, or just stumbled across a blue cover of a multi-colored treasure chest one day on Amazon and decided to take a chance, you have been my rock. I can’t wait to share with you what amazing adventures come next.
