Why I Write Across Genres

If you look at my books, you might wonder what exactly I'm doing.

There's memoir.

There's poetry.

There's fantasy.

And somewhere among all of that, there are family stories, history, old records, half-remembered conversations, and ideas for projects that haven't quite decided what they want to become yet.

From a marketing perspective, I'm sure there's an argument for picking a lane.

Apparently, I missed that memo.

The truth is, I've never been particularly interested in writing one kind of story. Not because I'm trying to do everything, but because everything I want to say doesn't fit into the same kind of book.

Some stories need truth.

Some need poetry.

And some need a little magic.

Some Stories Need to Be Told Exactly as They Happened

Shining Through could only be a memoir.

There were parts of my life I wanted to put into words without hiding them behind fictional characters or imaginary worlds. Writing it meant looking directly at experiences, relationships, grief, resilience, and the complicated reality that a life can hold beautiful things and painful things at the same time.

Memoir asks something very particular of a writer.

You don't get to change what happened because another ending would work better.

You don't get to give everyone a satisfying character arc.

Real people are complicated. Memories are imperfect. Life leaves loose ends.

There is a vulnerability in saying, This happened. This was my life. This is how I remember it.

But there is also something powerful about giving your own story a place to exist.

Some Things Make More Sense as Poetry

Then there's poetry.

Salt & Stardust and Wild Grace gave me a completely different way to write.

Poetry doesn't always need the whole story.

Sometimes it only needs the feeling.

A moment that would take pages to explain in prose can live inside a handful of lines. Grief can sit beside hope without either one needing to resolve the other. A memory can exist as an image rather than a chapter.

I think that's part of what I love about poetry.

It leaves room.

Room for the reader to bring their own experiences into the words. Room for something to mean one thing when you write it and something slightly different when someone else reads it.

Not every feeling needs to be explained.

Some simply need somewhere to land.

And Sometimes, I Need Magic

Then came The Whispering Seasons.

Fantasy gave me something completely different: freedom.

The Vale doesn't have to obey the rules of the world outside my window. Trees can remember.

Water can carry meaning. Seasons can become part of identity. The land itself can feel alive.

But strangely enough, creating a world that isn't real has given me another way to explore things that very much are.

Identity.

Belonging.

Change.

Grief.

Connection.

Becoming.

The questions underneath the magic are often deeply human ones.

Who are we when the version of ourselves we've always known begins to change?

What parts of us were always there, waiting to be recognized?

Where do we belong?

What happens when we finally listen to the quiet things we've spent years ignoring?

Fantasy lets me ask those questions without answering them through my own life.

Sometimes imagination creates exactly the distance a story needs.

Then There Are the Stories That Came Before Me

Lately, I've also found myself drawn even more deeply into family history.

I've spent years chasing pieces of the people who came before me through courthouse records, newspapers, military records, old photographs, names, dates, and whatever fragments survived long enough to be found.

That kind of writing feels different from everything else.

It isn't quite memoir because much of it happened before I existed.

It isn't fiction because these were real people.

And it isn't simply genealogy because I'm interested in more than names arranged neatly on a family tree.

I want to know who they were.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I want to understand as much of them as history will allow me to.

There are gaps I may never fill. Questions nobody living can answer. Stories that disappeared because no one thought to write them down.

Maybe that's part of why I feel such an urgency to write now.

I Don't Think Stories Care About Branding

For a while, I wondered whether writing across genres made my work look scattered.

Authors are often encouraged to build a recognizable brand, find their niche, and make sure readers know exactly what they're going to get.

There is value in that.

But I've realized my writing actually does have a common thread.

It just isn't a genre.

Again and again, I find myself writing about identity, memory, resilience, belonging, nature, family, and becoming.

Sometimes those themes belong in a memoir.

Sometimes they become a poem.

Sometimes they need a woman standing beside a magical brook in a place called the Vale.

The form changes.

The heart of it doesn't.

The Story Gets to Decide

Five books into this journey, I've stopped worrying quite so much about what kind of writer I'm supposed to be.

I'm a writer.

That's enough.

When a story comes to me, I want to listen long enough to figure out what it needs to become instead of forcing it into whatever box would make my bookshelf look more consistent.

Maybe that's why I love creating as much as I do.

There is always another way to tell a story.

Another world to explore.

Another memory worth preserving.

Another piece of ourselves waiting for language.

And I have a feeling I'm nowhere near finished discovering what mine will look like.