When I first realized I loved girls, it was seventh grade, and P.E. class had just begun. I was talking with a friend at the time about our shared love of stories and fantasy, and something about the way she looked at me, like she really, truly saw me, made my heart drop into my stomach. It was the feeling of having the floor vanish beneath your feet, the pause at the crest of a rollercoaster ride, those moments spent after you've hit a bad pothole and hold your breath while your organs rearrange themselves. I knew what it meant in an instant. The effects of this realization became clear almost immediately. People I didn't even tell began to distance themselves from me, friends started seeking excuses to avoid hanging out, my parents wouldn't let me bring girls to my room. I can name the most hurtful of these experiences off the top of my head; a close friend who was usually physically affectionate asking me not to hug or high-five her anymore, an acquaintance telling me that gayness was "cute with two men, but not with two women," a group of girls circling me in a locker room and making me repeat after them that I was a gross, predatory freak (at the ripe age of thirteen). The homophobia I experienced at the hands of strangers, which were often more vitriolic and aggressive, never hurt as much as it did at the hands of friends—people who were supposed to know me, to trust that I had only the best intentions, to look at me as something more than the people I found attractive. This sort of experience—this isolation—is not unique to me. Many in the LGBTQ community in particular will recognize it as an incredibly common experience, both before and after coming out. I've always been a writer. It's a good trait to fall back on during icebreakers: I'm Kayleigh, I'm eighteen, and I like to write. I published a full-length novel in March of 2022, about two people (lesbians, specifically) at the end of the world who push through the all-encompassing loneliness of their situations to find one another and unite. It was through the process of writing this novel that I made my most meaningful contact with my community. I received dozens of comments and messages from people my age who told me they never thought they'd get to read books about people like them. I made friends, learned the history of my community, found others who felt the way I did. In a way, I was mirroring the progression of my story; I may not have crossed a literal ocean to reach them, but I found their voices in the silence. Here is where I share a bit of information that may seem inconsistent with the rest of my story: I am majoring in business. Marketing, specifically. People in real life are always surprised, at the least, but I have my reasons. I got fortunate with Radio Apocalypse, that the story found its audience as quickly as it did. I self-published, and many in my position aren't quite so lucky. There are voices in our community, stories aching to be told, that may never be heard above the sheer, deafening silence. There is, it seems, an ocean to cross. I don't want another young person to feel the way I did for so long, because those around them would choose to ignore their feelings to preserve a sense of comfort. I want to amplify the voices of others and help their stories find a home.

At the moment, my favorite book is The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh. Anyone who knows me will tell you right away just how thoroughly I adore storytelling and how much I love fairytales and folk myths. The Wrath & the Dawn is a reimagining of the One Thousand and One Nights, which, in turn, is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, and I view it as a love letter, both to Middle Eastern culture and to storytelling itself. The main character, Shahrzad, uses her narrative skills not only to save her own life but to teach her enemy-turned-husband, Khalid, to love again and to fight for life. While I found the parallels to One Thousand and One Nights and the insights into a rich, multifaceted culture quite enchanting, I found myself falling in love with the stories Shahrzad told alongside Khalid. I believed in her conviction and her emotions. The characters' charisma bled through the pages until it became something real and tangible, and the author's care for the novel showed on every page. I am firmly convinced that a technically skilled writer is nothing in the face of a passionate storyteller, and, though I did no in-depth analysis of the library copy I borrowed, my reading of The Wrath & the Dawn validated my convictions. While Ahdieh's abilities are hardly up for debate, with her books performing so well that they have been adapted into a popular Webtoon, it was the emotion that stayed with me long after I returned the book. And while there are other books that I adore, books rich in thematically appropriate diction, clever syntactical choices, and relevant allusions to cherished classics, I find that the most memorable stories are the ones most lovingly woven.

My biggest goal has always been to provide representation for people like myself who want to feel seen. Part of that has been through my volunteer position at my high school's GSA club, where myself and my fellow club officers strive to create a safe and validating environment for other LGBTQ students, but the majority of it has been through my fiction writing. In the past, I've self-published two fiction books to local and online success, and, in March of this year, I plan to publish a third book, a lesbian science fiction novel of about 500 pages. I started writing when I was about eight years old, and my years of experience have led me to open an educational Instagram page, where I share advice on everything from outlining to proper and respectful representation. It is important to me to see others depicted in an empathetic and insightful manner, so I hope not only to provide that representation in my own work but to help others do the same. In the future, I hope to stay the course I'm on now, but to grow my voice to reach as many people as possible, and to move others to use the power of storytelling to create positive spaces.

I’ve wanted to open a business of my own since elementary school; my friends and I would spend bus rides during field trips brainstorming ideas for companies that sold everything from babysitting advice to gemstones to greeting cards to tiny furniture. My love for writing and reading presented an unexpected opportunity, though, when I self-published for the first and second times at the start of my high school career. Now, more than ever, authors have to do far more than just tell a story; in some cases, they must be their own cover designer, editor, accountant, format designer, and publicist. To be an author in the current oversaturated and social-media-driven environment is to be an entrepreneur, and, though I published young (even considering my years of writing experience at that point), I learned quickly that an outstanding book requires an outstanding marketing campaign. Once I became accustomed to the hyper-competitive market, I began personally researching ways to advertise my work in as inexpensive a way as possible. Through a combination of research and trial and error, I began to grow my online presence, sharing my writing advice in addition to some information about my books and future projects. My goals were chiefly to build an ethos-based connection with my audience and get to know the kind of people my readers might be. Since social media marketing was the least expensive, easiest way for me to put my work out there, I started on Pinterest, then expanded to Instagram and Tiktok. Along the way, I discovered an unexpected passion for and fascination with marketing in general, and I was accepted Early Decision to the marketing program at Rochester Institute of Technology. As I move on to college and beyond, I hope to learn new marketing methods, the psychological factors behind each of them, and expand my horizons for my novel writing and my ambitions for future business ventures of my own. According to professional writer and book critic Joseph Epstein, around eighty-one percent of Americans want to write a book—that’s two hundred million people. Writers, I feel, are an untapped and underappreciated target audience, and I have long wished to create a business that educates beginner writers alongside providing career opportunities and a variety of other products designed specifically by authors, for authors. And not only do I believe marketing to be essential in any walk of life, as self-marketing is a valuable skill for everything from job interviews to friendships, but I also believe that learning about marketing strategies can help a person become a more informed consumer. A variety of marketing tactics are employed on a day-to-day basis all around us, and being mindful of those tactics can help a person distinguish between a true desire sparked by a quality product and a mere illusion.

My biggest goal for the impact I wish to leave on the world has always been to provide representation for people like myself who want to feel seen. Part of that has been through my volunteer position at my high school's GSA club, where myself and my fellow club officers strive to create a safe and validating environment for other LGBTQ students, but the majority of it has been through my fiction writing. In the past, I've self-published two fiction books to local and online success, and, in March of this year, I plan to publish a third book, a lesbian science fiction novel of about 500 pages. I started writing when I was about eight years old, and my years of experience have led me to open an educational Instagram page, where I share advice on everything from outlining to proper and respectful representation. It is important to me to see others depicted in an empathetic and insightful manner, so I hope not only to provide that representation in my own work but to help others do the same. In the future, I hope to stay the course I'm on now, but to grow my voice to reach as many people as possible, and to move others to use the power of storytelling to create positive spaces.

In July of last year, I went to the emergency room after my watch measured a resting heart rate of upwards of one hundred fifty beats per minute and, following seven hours at the hospital and lots of blood tests, was diagnosed with Graves Disease, a condition that affects the thyroid and kicks it into overactivity. A lot of prior health issues began to make sense, such as difficulty participating in athletic activities, insomnia, and issues with metabolism, but I also found my mobility restricted over the next few months as I waited for the medications I was prescribed to take effect. These issues became exacerbated at the start of the school year. As someone who has had health issues my whole life, I was already aware that the public school system was not accessible to disabled students, but the extent of it quickly became clear. I missed parts of class when the elevators I needed access to were in use or when I felt sick and needed to go to the nurse, I found myself emailing teachers to remind them of parts of my 504 plan they were docking points for, and one teacher even told me my condition 'wasn't bad enough to result in hospitalization' when I asked to hang back during a class mindfulness walk and wait for my active heart rate to fall below 155 beats per minute. As my thyroid has gotten more in control and I've needed fewer accommodations, things have gotten better, but this experience has opened my eyes to the importance of accessibility in all spaces, especially during the pandemic. I've always been a writer, and I've always been interested in business. I found these worlds intersecting once I began putting my work out. With the advent of the internet, the publishing industry is moving so fast that authors don't just have to be good at writing; in some cases, they must be their own accountant, cover designer, editor, and marketing executive, and this is especially true in the realm of self-pub. I found myself expanding my horizons and building an online platform dedicated to teaching others about writing in the general sense in addition to the importance of representation in fiction, and I hope to one day turn this platform into a business. Ideally, I would help other young writers find their way in the publishing world, especially young writers who find themselves underrepresented in traditional publishing. A 2019 survey by the Publishers Association found that only 6.6% of the publishing workforce identified as having a disability, and the percentage of disabled authors who get publishing deals is uncertain. Disabled voices deserve a space, and they deserve to be listened to. In an ideal world, I would start an accessible business that would enable authors from every walk of life to find publishers or be published, teach young writers about their passions, and celebrate the stories we all have to tell, and I've been working hard since middle school to build the foundations of this business.