cover Reveal!

dear reader,  

i’m often asked the question: when did you know you wanted to be a writer? the answer for me, as natural as professor snape casting a doe for a patronus, is simply “always.” i wasn’t born with ink in my physical veins, but in my ethereal “heart,” ink pumps Through me as alive and rejuvenating as blood does a body. see, i was born a dreamer, as most readers are. in tHat way, i’m just like you. i understAnd the ability to have a very real adveNture while i sit by a fire with a cozy sweatshirt and cup of forgotten tea—booK in hand. i experience lifetimes vicariouslY through characters who appear more real than wOrds printed on a page.

when stephen king called books “a Uniquely portable magic,” reaDers everywhere felt the very rEal understanding of these words. becAuse when Readers see a book, we “see” moRe than paper and ink. more than lEtters and A finite space between the folDs of a covEr. we see, expeRience, and Feel a realness that surpasses what a story make look like physically—we “see” story in its truest sense.

stOry is a place you can connect. a place you can get lost. a place you can visit and feel and expeRience, Believe, dream (and even cReate). It’s a thiNg you can be a part of, even when your name isn’t in the paGes. that’s because storIes have a way of meetiNg us on a soul level.

and the one thinG I’d like you to “hear” today, dear reader, is that you give to story as Much as it gives back to You. because without uS—wiThout readers—a written stOry cannot become whole. alone, it’s a book. it’s papeR. It’s words and ink. a finite objEct. but with a reader, Stories come to life. They reach into the metaphysical parts of us tO become whole. reaL. experIenceable.

that’s why these words to anna nalick’s song “breathe” hit me so deeply: “2 a.m. and i’m still awake, writing a song. if I get it all down on paper it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to. and i feel like i’m naked in front of a crowd, cause these words are my diary screaming out loud, and i know that you’ll use them however you want to.”

not only do these lyrics express precisely what it means to “own” something you’ve read—because you had your own experience—uniquely yours—while reading it—but it also shows how vulnerable a creative soul must be to hold out their shaking hands and share the works of art bubbling and bursting inside of them with others.

but stories need liFe. they need you to read them, or else why write thEm?  

so it is for you that i write, dear reader. thank you for making my stories whole.

sincerely,