Hi, Olivia! Thanks so much for chatting with me. To start off, I have to put a plug in for your story! How would you describe A Book Dragon’s Story?

A Book Dragon’s Story follows Bookmark, a disabled book dragon desperately working to earn her place by her mother’s side in their family library, without burning it down in the process. If you like cozy stories you can read with anyone, fantasy, bookish vibes, family relationships, and mental health/disability rep, this is the perfect story for you!

(Side note from Rachel: I have read this story, and I absolutely adored it. It brings me so much comfort whenever I read it.)

How did this story come about? What inspired you to write it? 

I wrote this story at a very creatively dry point in my life. I knew I had to write a short story in two to three months, but I had no idea what to write about. I told myself, “Okay, what are some of your favorite things?” Books and, of course, dragons were what came to mind. So if I was going to get through writing a story when I couldn’t do much else, it had to be about something I loved. That’s how the idea was born, through necessity, love, and a bit of deadline desperation.

Do you have a favorite genre to write in? And if so, what draws you to that genre? 
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I’m a genre hopper! Right now, I love cozy fantasy, which is like regular fantasy but slower paced with less of the danger and more of the magic that keeps us coming back to those stories. Think The Wind in the Willows or life before Bilbo left the Shire! 

A Book Dragon’s Story is the first story I wrote in that cozy fantasy genre. But I’ve written in multiple genres before, like fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, and historical fiction. And to my embarrassment, I used to write cringey fanfiction like every good fangirl.

Which stories shaped you when you were younger? 
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If you’ve read my bio, you’ll know I didn’t start reading for a while. I didn’t learn to read until I was ten, so book reading was limited . But that didn’t stop stories from shaping me. I was obsessed with the movie Toy Story to the point of memorizing the entire script! When I eventually learned to read, I read lots of books. The biggest that stand out are the American Girl doll books (but specifically the mystery series), the Warrior Cats series, and The Secret Garden, which I hope to write a retelling of someday!

What is the best book you’ve read lately and what did you love about it? 

Now that’s just not fair to ask. I’m an avid reader, so picking just one is hard. I’ll have to say Water Moon by Samatha Sotto Yambao. It was a beautifully lyrical fantasy that felt just like a Studio Ghibli movie, if not a little scary at times too. I love books that entertain you and make you think, so I had to have my pencil by me at all times to mark down my thoughts.

Do you have a favorite book or TV character, and if so, what do you love most about them? 

I don’t have many favorite books or TV show characters, not because there aren’t great ones, but because I was so often disappointed by how the story went when I chose my favorites. It’s why I started writing, actually, because I was so fed up with all my favorite characters with autistic traits getting the short end of the stick!

I do have one recent favorite though. I just finished watching White Collar, a crime show about a former art thief who starts working with the FBI to save the love of his life. I loved the complicated but caring dynamic between the two main characters, especially the constant banter!

What do you love to see in stories? What do you wish you could see more of? 

I’m a broad reader, so I love to see a lot of things in stories. Families working together, magic and mischief, grand adventures, and happy endings are all my jam! What I wish I could see more of (besides more well-written autistic characters) is stories that don’t take the easy way out. Stories that choose to address the hard things we struggle with every day, whether it be a disability or something else entirely, and choose to show the light and goodness as well. It’s rare to find a story that is truthful enough to acknowledge the hard and brave enough to say that the hard is not the end.

One of the things I love about your newsletter is your current series where you’re answering readers’ questions about autism. I know I personally have learned a lot about myself and about other people from reading your answers. Is there something you wish more people knew or understood about autism?

I wish more people understood the fundamentals of what autism is. Autism is, in its broadest definition, a neurological disability that affects your communication, affecting how to filter, behave, and interact within the world. People seem to misunderstand what that means. (Which is funny since I’m the one with the communication disorder.)

There seem to be two sides of the confusion; either autism is a tragedy, a disease that takes everything happy in life, or a smart, cool personality trait that everyone should have. It’s both and neither at the same time.
Yes, autism is a disability that makes my daily life difficult and frustrating, but I thoroughly love who I am and live a fulfilling life. Yes, autism affects my personality as it’s a brain disorder, but that shouldn’t downplay the difficulties. I struggle, but I love who I’m created to be, whether I’m autistic or not.

What are your go-to books and resources (fiction, nonfiction, or online) for readers who may want to learn more about autism?  

That’s a great question! For years, I read and gathered the best books with autism representation I could find. It was a difficult, almost impossible task to accomplish. I’m still scouring the new release shelves today for new books. If you’d like a full copy of my booklist, you can subscribe to my email list here! But a couple of the top of my head are The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family by Sarah Kapit and Good Different by Meg Eden Kuyatt.

As for nonfiction or online resources, it’s difficult to find one reliable source. Research and opinions about autism are constantly changing. You don’t need a degree to talk about something anymore, which means there’s a lot of misinformation on websites and social media that requires a skilled filter. But then even the people with degrees get it wrong! So it’s difficult to recommend one specific source for the answer because nobody has the whole thing. 

One great person to learn from off the top of my head though is Temple Grandin. Her autism research, the books she’s published, and the movie made about her life were very helpful when I was first learning about my disability.

If readers would like to connect with you or find your story, what’s the best way to do that? 

The best place to connect with me is my email list. I’m always chatting with them about autism, books, writing updates, and the occasional cat. You can find my books and writing, like A Book Dragon’s Story, on my website.

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me! I know I’ve enjoyed it. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we go?

Whether you check out my writing or decide it’s not for you, I hope you know whoever you are, wherever you come from, or what you can (or cannot) do, you are valuable no matter what.

​I always said I wouldn’t write a fantasy novel.

I didn’t have the head for it, or so I thought. I couldn’t develop a whole new world and all the rules and laws that came with that—my imagination didn’t stretch that far.

I never got into the medieval scene, and that meant I didn’t read much fantasy either. But you know what I did read? Historical fiction.

So I wrote historical fiction. It still let me escape into another time, another world. I thought that settled it.

Until I read fantasy.

I’ve experienced a “reading awakening” over the past few years. And somewhere—not sure when or how—I caught myself reading more fantasy than historical fiction.

Turns out it wasn’t that I didn’t like fantasy. I just didn’t like 2000s-era Christian allegorical fantasy. Not that there’s anything wrong with them—I look at some series in that subgenre and wish I could have gotten into them. But I could only take so many medieval Narnia rip-offs.

As I got older, not only could I choose what I read, but the fantasy market widened, like, a lot. Christian and general markets both made room for more subgenres, not to mention they had more books to choose from in the first place.

Goodbye, medieval Narnia rip-offs!

So I read fantasy and wrote historical fiction. Because I still didn’t believe I had the head for it.

Two things happened that slowly changed my mind. Well, really three. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, the more time I spent in historical fiction circles, the more I realized how much they really truly loved research. Which blew my mind a little. I thought research was the monster we all pretended to put up with until we found those couple things that made your brain light up.

That’s how I did it. Get the couple shiny ideas I wanted, research like a mad person for a day or two, and write a book. But when it came to the nitty-gritty of historical accuracy (what were they wearing then? What were they eating? What did houses look like?), I didn’t care nearly as much. Other than the few elements that interested me, it was hard to drag myself to research.

More or less, I used my historical setting like one would use a fantasy world.

Not a great system. Would not recommend. It only dragged me down when all those nitty-gritty things I skipped came back to haunt me during editing.

Second, I came across two stories that redefined how I wanted to write.

But I should go back a bit, let’s say 2019-2021, when I read the books Fawkes by Nadine Brandes and Shadow by Kara Swanson. Both made me turn the final page and say, “I want to write like that.” Both ironically were fantasy novels, despite my historical era, so I really should have seen this development coming.

Well, last year, it happened again, for the first time in a long while.

First, I came across the TV series Arcane: League of Legends. I promise I’ll spare you the PowerPoint presentation. (Besides, I already wrote a blog post about how much I love it, so if you want to know, you can check it out HERE.)

Then I took everyone’s recommendations at long last and read the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo (which will get its own blog post soon).

I could say so much about these two stories, but suffice to say, they both had such unique fantasy worlds, unlike anything else I had ever seen. They dealt with deep questions and themes, came with relatable characters, and told a beautiful, albeit dark at times, story.

I often get a “hangover” after consuming good media where my own fear bombards me that I’ll never be able to write something like that. But these two projects didn’t make me feel that way. I finished them, and I knew somewhere deep inside myself that I wanted to write stories like this. I knew I was meant to write these stories right now.

And third, around that time, I joined a writing group. That’s right, a real, in-person writing group. And everyone in that group wrote fantasy or speculative fiction of some flavor. I think that was my first acknowledgement of this new thing, the first time I decided that I wanted to try it, even if I didn’t quite realize it yet. I entered fantasy writing contests and registered to attend a fantasy writers conference/fan convention this summer.

And then I did it. I needed a new novel to pitch. So I sat down with a historical concept, that no matter how much I loved it, wouldn’t quite click.

Turns out it made the perfect plot for my fantasy world.

I planned to try a few chapters, see how I felt about it. I expected that it would be too hard and I’d scuttle back to historical fiction and pretend this never happened.

That concept unlocked something. I wrote the first quarter of the novel in sixteen days—the fastest I’ve written anything since I don’t know when. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a mess, but I can look underneath it and see a solid story, not all the work needed to make it somewhat presentable.

And most importantly, I had fun with it again. I recovered the ability to play around with my first drafts, to write things just because it sounded fun, to try wild outlandish things that sometimes work.

It scares me. After all, I did all this work as a historical author. What would it mean to switch genres now? But I think I’ve weathered it like so many other things in my writing life. I went with the flow and saw where it went.

So what now? Am I done with historical fiction forever? I doubt it. I’ll always leave that door open. There’s too many fascinating things in history for me to ignore. Maybe this phase is what I need right now, maybe I don’t have the mental bandwidth for research and such right now.

But I can’t ignore this door before me either. I wonder if everything’s led to this after all. Historical made a great lower-stakes genre to improve my craft before having to balance worldbuilding with telling a good story. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get a novel deal before now. I just don’t know. So I’ll keep telling the stories that I have right now.

I mean, really, can we do much else?

I don’t really know why I wrote this blog post. It seems a little presumptuous to assume you all want to read this story about what happens in my head.

I guess I hope it reaches someone else who’s thinking of doing something very different, whether switching the genre they write or maybe some other life direction. I hope maybe my experience might help you see where God uses your own life and leads you in this new direction, like maybe you were supposed to be here all along.

It’s scary, but it can be a lovely place to rediscover yourself and your own creativity and what you can do. Don’t panic. Give it a try, go with the flow, and see what comes. 

Got anything new you're trying lately? Let me know how your writing, reading, or whatever has been going in the comments below!