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Yesterday morning I stood in the Paul C. Blau Theatre at the Clark County Library and taught Write Like You Mean It: A Radical Resilience Workshop for Writers. It was my workshop. My slideshow. My workbook. My flyer on the library wall with a big arrow pointing to... me. To me?

Two years ago, I opened a Google Doc and typed out a few goals. Number one on the list? I wanted my novels in at least one library. Longevity and all. Now? Six of my fiction books are...

I just got home from the Quills Conference in Salt Lake City.

I wasn't a speaker or attendee. I was a volunteer and a chapter president, which lands somewhere in the middle of the official-capacity spectrum, and even that felt like more space than I was allowed to take up.

Let me tell you why...

The Reason I Didn't Enter the Contests

I didn't submit any of my work for the awards. I disqualified myself preemptively because I've used AI in my process. Here's what I mean by "used AI." I have never...

I just got home from the Las Vegas Writers Conference.

I was faculty.

Let me say that again, because my brain is still trying to accept the sentence. I was faculty at the Las Vegas Writers Conference. At twenty-nine years old. Me, little redneck from a town of three thousand people in the middle of rural Utah. Sharing the roster with New York Times bestselling authors, senior literary agents from major firms, talent managers actively developing Broadway musicals, Bram Stoker Award winners, and...

I've been asking myself the wrong question my whole life.

I kept asking: why am I unhappy? Like if I could just find the right answer, the right relationship, the right accomplishment, the right combination of being enough... the unhappiness would lift. Like it was a puzzle and I was just missing a piece.

But that's not the right question. The right question is: how could I possibly be anything else when I have never, not once, been allowed to just exist?

Let me explain what I mean by that. And...

Here's a lesson I apparently needed to learn the hard way: when your fever hits 104 degrees, put the phone down.

I spent the last 48 hours in a fever-induced delirium, courtesy of some kind of bug that decided to throw a party in my already-compromised body while I was simultaneously weaning off a medication. The result? A perfect storm of vomiting, shaking, and sending panicked texts to people I care about while my brain was literally cooking itself.

I am embarrassed. I am ashamed. And I am,...

I'm going to be vulnerable with you today. More vulnerable than usual, which is saying something if you know me at all.

Does anyone actually care about my words?

I've been avoiding that question for a long time. Because the answer might hurt. But here's what I've been sitting with lately: even the people who love me most... the ones who cheer me on, who share my posts, who call themselves my biggest fans... most of them haven't actually read my work. Not really. Not all the way through.

And I'm...

I've been thinking about connection lately. About what happens when artists become successful and somehow, somewhere along the way, the criteria for who gets access to them shifts from "does this resonate with me?" to "what's the ROI?"

I'm not calling anyone out. This isn't about a single person. It's about a pattern I keep seeing, and honestly, it's breaking my heart.

Here's the thing: our brains are literally designed for connection. Social neuroscience research has shown that the need to...

I don't talk about politics.

If you've followed me for any length of time, you know this. I've built entire communities around the explicit rule: no politics, no religion, no debates that divide us. I've believed that my job as a writer is to create spaces where humans can connect across those lines, not deepen the trenches.

I'm breaking that rule today.

Two days ago, I watched a woman named Renee Good get shot in the face by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. I watched it on my computer, scrolling...

Here's the unspoken rule of creative survival: Don't self-promote. Support others and hope they support you back.

I learned this the hard way. A few years ago, I was That Person. If I knew you, I was marketing at you. Links in DMs, asking for shares, treating friendships like networking opportunities. I didn't think I was being predatory. I thought I was hustling.

Then I got publicly called out, and it wasn't gentle. It sent me into a breakdown. I disappeared from social media for a long time.

...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the moment when a relationship ends. Not the explosive kind, where there's a fight and a door slam and everyone knows exactly where they stand. I mean the quiet kind. The kind where you realize, somewhere in the fog of silence and non-responses, that you're the only one still holding on.

Recently, I had to set a boundary with someone I trusted. Someone I'd invited into my life in meaningful ways. Someone I'd shown up for, defended, worked with, and...

I woke up to learn that Utah has banned more books. Again.

The state now has 22 titles that are officially illegal in every public school library statewide. The newest additions? Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

So naturally, the ACLU of Utah filed a federal lawsuit against the state.

The plaintiffs include the estate of Kurt Vonnegut (whose Slaughterhouse-Five made the list),...

I recently received documents detailing every shitty thing I've ever done, every mistake I've made, every way I've hurt people. Like eighty-something pages written by someone who loved me for nearly three decades of their life. Pages that read like a prosecution's closing argument against my entire existence.

I sat with the words for a long time. I read them and read them again. I didn't flinch, didn't look away. Because here's the thing: some of it is true. I was selfish. I was chaotic. I was...

I don't write for money. I never have.

I write because the stories won't leave me alone. I write because somewhere out there, someone needs to see themselves in a character who turns their wounds into wisdom. I write because connection is the whole damn point.

But I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel good to see proof that the words are landing.

So here's my first year as an actively publishing novelist, laid bare. No filters. No exaggeration. Just the real numbers from a real indie author...

I slept last night.

Not the fitful, sweaty, heart-pounding kind of sleep I've gotten used to. Real sleep. The kind where you close your eyes and then it's morning and you feel like a person instead of a haunted house.

I kept food down yesterday. And the day before that. After weeks of daily vomiting, I ate meals and they stayed where meals are supposed to stay.

No doctor did this for me. I did this for me.

The Breakthrough

For years, I've collected diagnoses like the world's worst trading cards....

The Numbers Don't Lie

Before I tell you my story, I need you to understand that it is not unique. It is not an outlier. It is the statistical norm for women seeking medical care in America.

93% of women aged 25-34 report feeling dismissed when seeking medical help.

Over 40% visited multiple providers before receiving a diagnosis.

Women with chest pain wait 29% longer in the ER for heart attack evaluation than men.

Women are 7x more likely to be sent home during a heart attack.

Women have a 50-59%...

I'm going to tell you something embarrassing. Not embarrassing like "I accidentally texted grandma a poop emoji" embarrassing. Embarrassing like "I should have known better and here I am, punching myself in the face repeatedly."

Someone tried to scam me recently. My husband and I entertained an offer from a guy who wanted to pay for some spicy photos. We're not sex workers—we were a couple who used to be polyamorous, and this felt like a moment to be a little wild together. A little extra cash...

One of the things that lights me up the most about indie publishing is discovering authors who are telling the stories that mainstream publishing keeps overlooking. Stories where the people we're told don't belong... actually run the whole damn show.

Meet Jamal Byas.

Jamal is a New York-based author on the autism spectrum who started writing Chase of Paradise as a freshman in high school. What began as a teen story evolved alongside him, maturing into something bold and unapologetic. The...

I need to tell you about something that happened recently that has me feeling all the feelings.

You know that thing where you pour your heart into a book, send it out into the world, and wonder if anyone will truly get what you were trying to say? And then someone does. Not just someone, but a fellow author who understands the craft, who sees the layers, who connects with the heart of the story in a way that makes you feel like every late night and every revision was worth it.

That just...

My friend was having a terrible week. Life had beaten her down in the way it does when everything compounds... relationship stress, money problems, an exhaustion that lives deep within bones. When the HR guy called about a job opportunity, she took a breath, painted on what she calls her "bubbly, happy" mask, and performed enthusiasm she didn't feel.

"I didn't want to scare him away," she told me later.

Scare him away. As if her humanity (her real, struggling, beautifully messy humanity) was a...

Do you ever find yourself spiraling, thinking about something you did eight years ago? Ten years ago? Ten months ago? Eight days ago?

I do. Like all the fuckin' time. Do other people feel this way? Do others spend hours replaying every moment they looked like a fool?

I sit and think and think and think until I can't think anymore. I dissect every moment of past interactions, every decision I made, every word I said. Why the hell do I do this? It's stupid. It's the past. I don't live in the...