I’ve always been a writer—I just didn’t know that’s what it was. Growing up, I journaled extensively. It was the only way I knew how to process the rush of questions I was always carrying around. But journaling felt too private, and schoolwork was too formulaic. I’d never tried writing for myself, and definitely not beyond myself.

That changed in college. I took a creative writing class, and for the first time, someone told me I had something worth saying. And that’s really the scariest part of writing, isn’t it? Asking yourself, what do I even have to say? And why would anyone care to read it? But once I started, I didn’t want to stop.

Since then, I’ve written short stories, the occasional poem, and now, a novel called Upon a Hill of Broken Shadows. My writing tends to circle around the same questions: what it means to be human, what we owe each other, and the strange tenderness of being alive. I write a lot of introspection. That’s my favorite place to live—inside someone’s thoughts. The messy, unfinished ones. The contradictions. The doubts they don’t say out loud. I like the silence between words, the emotional residue people try to hide. I think that’s where the truth lives.

I’ve leaned into my layered view of the world, and the people I’ve known, the spaces I’ve moved through, all of it has shaped the way I think and write. My work is emotional and intentional—little pieces of me and the people I’ve loved, the things I’m still trying to understand. I don’t always have answers, but writing helps me get closer.