It is bustling today at the Grimoire Cafe! Outside, the streets are full of bright colors, strangers becoming friends, cequins, flannel, doc martins, and more rainbows than you can count. There’s a line at the counter that stretches out the door, and even the line is a party. Tini has a small army of baristas helping her keep up with the seemingly never ending onslaught of smiling faces, and upbeat music is playing overhead. The windows are open wide, every seat is taken, and even the tables and chairs on the sidewalk outside are full.

Today is our little town’s Pride party, and seemingly every single resident is out on the streets in celebration. The sun is shining, it’s a comfortable 72 degrees, and the world outside this little heaven can’t touch us. Love is love, and we are soaking in it.

In 2016 I started writing a book that would one day be titled The Cloak’s Shadow—and it would change my life.

But first, a couple of years before that, I began writing a book I called Corollary. It was the third in a vampire series–Harbinger, and Augury preceeding it. It featured a born vampire man named Zithrany, who falls in love with a human woman named Harlynn. Shortly after meeting, Harlynn is attacked and violently turned against her will. The story focused on Zith and Harlynn, but Zithrany had a sister named Calistus who was closeted, and in a secret relationship with a woman named Rain. As I wrote Calistus and Rain’s side story, I started peeling back the onion on their characters and realized I liked Calistus and Rain a lot–they were just as interesting than Harlynn and Zith. I got stuck with the story and ultimately put it down so I could work on other things–like The Cloak’s Shadow.

In 2016, I wrote The Cloak’s Shadow (the first book in The Cloaked Series), which was supposed to be a one-and-done storyline. At the time, I was querying in the hopes of landing an agent and a traditional publishing deal. Meanwhile, I had ideas for a second book so I went ahead and wrote The Medium’s Possession, in which a witch named Wren appears at the last minute and saves the day, with no idea if it would ever see the light of day. Well, my critque partner loved The Medium’s Possession, but she wanted more Wren. I knew Wren was queer, and had a tragic backstory, but beyond that I hadn’t fleshed her out much. I didn’t know how to deliver more of her arc within The Medium’s Possession without overwhelming an already complex story, so I pressed pause on that idea, and decided to wait for inspiration to strike. (Noticing a pattern?)

All the while, in my real life, every so often I was going through periods of what I called “wanting to peel my own skin off.” (Dramatic? Yes.) It felt like nails on a chalkboard, but in my mind and body, a deep antsy discomfort. I wanted to unzip my body and emerge as some new version of myself. The problem was, I didn’t know what that new version of me was. Would a haircut do the trick? Tried that. I lost weight. I gained weight. I got a couple tattoos. I pierced my nose. I cleaned and reorganized my closet, started journalling, stopped journalling, got into planners. Tried acupuncture (still love!). The list goes on.

This was happening over and over again while I was working on the first two books of The Cloaked Series. I kept writing, feeling like the answer was somewhere, right around the corner of the next chapter, but it was always nowhere to be found.

Then, one day, while in the height of a one of these spells, I was sitting in my car with a trusted friend, and I broke down into tears. It all came bubbling out—things I didn’t even know I knew about myself.

“I think I’m attracted to women!!!!”

Well, my friend Quinn is queer AF and an absolutely delightful human being, so of course their response was, “Okay. Have you told your husband how you feel?”

Because, dear reader, I forgot to mention, I had been married for nearly ten years and had two awesome kiddos at this point. Natch.

I can remember the way it felt when my eyes went wide. “Oh, no. I could never, he’d be so upset!”

Quinn looked at me, their eyes narrowed, and they simply said, “I don’t think he would…”

I told my husband on our tenth anniversary trip a month later. It wasn’t some huge gesture. We were drunk, walking around Walt Disney World and I said “Have you ever thought about maybe having sex with me and another woman, together?”

Christmas morning. That’s the only way I can describe his response. “Um. Yes. Yes, I have. What?” Like he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

It didn’t happen overnight, it took a lot of talking and figuring our shit out after that before anything actually happened. Just like I didn’t figure this shit out about myself overnight, just like I didn’t write my way to my own queer epiphany overnight. It was years of small actions, building over time, and one friend I could really trust, that culminated in something really beautiful.

Fast forward to 2019, and I no longer felt the need to unzip my skin. I was finalizing The Cloak’s Shadow for a late 2020 release, when my editor said she thought the story could be improved via a secondary storyline.

BOOM! Inspiration!

Wren’s backstory was the secondary storyline–the tragic series of events that left her single by the beginning of The Medium’s Possession! I could never have delivered on that–I don’t think I would have even let myself plot it, feeling it wasn’t a story I was qualified to tell–before coming out to my husband, and all the incredible things that happened as a result. I wrote it, I loved it. My editor loved it. And, most importantly, my readers loved it!

It wasn’t just my writing that benefitted when I got to be my full self: My husband and I uncovered new strength in our relationship, and had a lot of fun embarking on a new adventure together. We celebrate our twentieth anniversary next year. I met one of my very best author friends, Lin Lustig, just by being my real bi self online–which led to more author friends, and travel, and book signings, and so much love I can’t even account for it all. My kids are healthier and happier because I’m healthier and happier. I haven’t wanted to unzip my skin in nearly ten years.

And my writing? My writing became more real and authentic. The Cloak’s Shadow was made so much better when I let down my walls and dove into Wren and Bridgette’s relationship. And, to be honest, I write way hotter sex scenes than I ever did before–het. and sapphic alike. The Medium’s Possession is better for that exploration, too, and it all made room for The Witch’s Complement, when Wren gets her ultimate Happily Ever After with Abby. I would never have allowed myself to write something so sapphic and so hot before letting myself fully live my truth.

Oh, and that vampire story I mentioned, way up at the top of this post? It’s now titled Blood Pact, it’s the third book in my Bloodline Saga series, and it releases in serial later this year. Calistus and Rain share the stage with equal billing to Zithrany and Harlynn. Calistus is no longer in the closet, but the paparazzi make being in love difficult, so there’s still that secrecy element that’s a lot of fun to write, without the homophobia. Because I don’t do homophobia in my books.

Everybody is happier when they’re allowed to be fully themselves. And happiness is sexy.