The Library Journal

The Stories We Carry Before We Ever Write Them

I’ve always believed that stories begin long before we write them.

They begin in the things we notice.

The conversations we can’t forget.
The questions that follow us for years.
The moments that seem insignificant at the time, only to reveal their meaning much later.

When people imagine a writer, they often imagine someone creating worlds. But for me, writing has always felt more like discovering them. A story rarely arrives fully formed. It begins as a feeling. A fragment. A tension I don’t yet understand.

Sometimes it becomes fiction.

Sometimes it becomes an essay.

Sometimes it remains a question.

The novels I write are filled with characters searching for belonging, identity, love, courage, and the complicated process of becoming who they truly are. Those themes didn’t appear because I chose them. They appeared because they are questions I keep returning to myself.

Writing, for me, is not a way to escape life. It is a way to see it more clearly. Perhaps that is why I’ve created this space. Not simply as a place to share books, but as a place to explore the stories behind them.

The ideas.
The reflections.
The hidden rooms.

The questions that arrive before the first chapter and remain long after the final page.

If you’ve found your way here, welcome.

I’m glad you’re here.

Why I Believe Fiction Changes Us

Every reader has experienced it. You close a book and discover that something inside you has shifted.

The world is the same. Your life is the same. And yet you are not quite the same person who opened the first page.

I’ve often wondered why fiction has that power. After all, we know the characters aren’t real. We know the events never happened.

And still we grieve for them.
Celebrate with them.
Fall in love with them.

Perhaps because stories allow us to experience lives beyond our own.

A novel can place us inside another person’s fears, hopes, mistakes, and dreams. It expands our capacity for empathy. It teaches us that people are often more complicated than they appear.

That courage is rarely simple.

That love rarely follows a straight line.

The best stories don’t tell us what to think. They invite us to see differently. And sometimes that is enough to change everything. As both a reader and a writer, that possibility continues to fascinate me. The idea that words on a page can alter the way we understand ourselves. Not by providing answers. But by helping us ask better questions. That is the kind of story I hope to write. And the kind of story I will always seek as a reader.