They taught us what?… In my first women’s literature class in college, I learned about the world’s female writers throughout history. You know, the women my high school curriculum largely ignored. My gender had a history every bit as rich and expansive as the men—and no one had told me! Beyond my anger, I found my first goal: I will write us back into the narrative.

Young girls shouldn’t see only a portion of the population making history. No one should. Whether we are female or male, BIPOC or LGBTQ+, our history has developed because of the breadth of our endeavors—for good and for worse. That realization helped me find my second goal: To teach by questioning. Teaching became my career. It’s part of who I am, and it is integral to my stories.

Now, I have fused my two goals together. I’m an author creating factually-rich young adult historical fiction for that girl. The girl who needs to see herself in our nation’s history. The reader who longs to see a varied cast of characters with agency and unique perspectives. All you readers, like me, who are unapologetically aching for one heck of an adventure, let’s go…