Growing up, I have always hated how I looked, how people said my name, and how uncomfortable I felt in my own skin. I knew something was not right, but I did not have the language to explain it even to myself. I never knew how to dress myself because I was never comfortable with how I looked and I entered high school practically living in an oversized hoodie and baggy jeans. High school was the dictionary I had been trying to find for a decade; it let me explore my gender and sexuality, and I eventually realized that I did not identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. Putting a name to the emotions I had been struggling with for so long, even going as far to tell my mother I was performing gender in public and "took it off" to become a genderless gremlin at home, took more weight off my shoulders than I ever could have imagined. Legally changing my name was the clear next step, and my mother supported me through it all. I would never have become the person or writer I am today without her. In high school, I met a person who became my idol and the person who held my hand as I struggled to find the words that fit my own experience. They were endlessly kind and lifted all of us up as if we were all family. After graduating and we all went our separate ways, I stumbled upon a Facebook post by their mother remembering them, prompting me to dig deeper and discover that they had been declared as deceased. It was gut-wrenching to think that someone who had uplifted me so much could be gone. I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to be that cheerful, friendly force that got me through some of the darkest years of my life. This led me to making friends with an amazing writer and philosopher in my undergrad classes who reminds me of myself seven years ago, who desperately needs a friend to remind them that their worth is not determined by their grades nor how the world perceives them. It was this friend who reminded me that it is a writer's job to give to their communities, in the form of newspapers or magazines or classic books. I want to be a writer that gives life to queer characters outside of paperbacks and hardcovers. I want to live in a world that does not blink twice at men in skirts and girls with more body hair than their partners. I want the world to understand that humans are so incredibly complicated when it comes to expression, but that it is a beautiful confusion and should be celebrated rather than feared and hated. I want my books to give a young person the strength to do the same research I did, even if they realize they do identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, because I want to live in a world where these questions can be asked safely and without the fear of harm. I want to be a writer that gives to their community as much as my community has given to me.

Growing up, I have always hated how I looked, how people said my name, and how uncomfortable I felt in my own skin. I knew something was not right, but I did not have the language to explain it even to myself. I never knew how to dress myself because I was never comfortable with how I looked and I entered high school practically living in an oversized hoodie and baggy jeans. High school was the dictionary I had been trying to find for a decade; it let me explore my gender and sexuality, and I eventually realized that I did not identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. Putting a name to the emotions I had been struggling with for so long, even going as far to tell my mother I was performing gender in public and "took it off" to become a genderless gremlin at home, took more weight off my shoulders than I ever could have imagined. Legally changing my name was the clear next step, and my mother supported me through it all. I would never have become the person or writer I am today without her. As I put names to my own experiences with my identities, I realized I did not see much media that reflected my own or my friends' experiences in this area. The moment a novel character was revealed to be anything but heterosexual and cisgender, they were swiftly killed off or never mentioned again. In real life, queer people who may or may not claim the term for themselves are still slandered to this day. It is exhausting. I only want a world that is not afraid to admit that people like me exist, and that people like me live lives similar to heterosexual-cisgender people. I want a world that is not afraid to reach for books with a queer protagonist that does not get killed off in the first act or pushed to the side in favor of their heteronormative support character. There needs to be more representation for the LGBTQ+ community in media. Our existence needs to be normalized so we are not dehumanized and demonized for another forty years. It is a writer's job to give to their communities, in the form of newspapers or magazines or classic books. I want to be a writer that gives life to queer characters outside of paperbacks and hardcovers. I want to live in a world that does not blink twice at men in skirts and girls with more body hair than their partners. I want the world to understand that humans are so incredibly complicated when it comes to expression, but that it is a beautiful confusion and should be celebrated rather than feared and hated. I want my books to give a young person the strength to do the same research I did, even if they realize they do identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, because I want to live in a world where these questions can be asked safely and without the fear of harm. I want to be a writer that gives to their community as much as my community has given to me.

It is not a book, but I believe everyone should dip their toes into the epic poem "The Odyssey." It has a lot of divine intervention and requires a bit of belief in mystical forces beyond the human comprehension, but "The Odyssey" also touches very human topics such as war, love, mental struggle, and the difficult process of loss and grief. The main character Odysseus will not be liked by everyone who reads his story, and he makes many mistakes that readers may find unacceptable and unforgivable, but he is just a man at the end of the day. He makes mistakes like us all, and we as readers and as humans must be reminded that even great heroes are human and make mistakes. I want everyone to read this poem to gain some surface knowledge on the Trojan War and the Greek gods, to dive into Odysseus' calculating mind that can't get him through every situation, and to see what grief and loss can do to the human psyche. Many people struggle with mental health issues, but there are also many who have never suffered because of their own doubting mind. I want both of these groups of people to see that mental struggles do affect a person's outlook on life and actions, and that they also can lead to an amazing journey that never would have happened if one had been calm and calculating the entire time. Passion and madness make for a very interesting story, after all.