I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember. Writing wasn’t just something I did; it was something I had to do to to get the stories out of my head and make room for new ones.

I taught myself how to write in English by reading fanfics online. My first serious forays into storytelling were mostly fandom-related: fan series, novellas, some text-based RP here and there.

My debut novel, Gifted, also started off as a cross-fandom experiment. There's some Matrix in there, obviously, and some Stargate: Atlantis, if you squint. The suits were from Men in Black. Like a magpie, I grabbed whatever shiny bits I could find and made them into something of my own. Maybe that's why it took ten years and four rewrites before I was ready to share the book with the world.

My second novel, To Bloom Again, was a labor of love that started as a series of vignettes in the summer of 2020. Faced with the uncertainty that came with successive lockdowns and Tories being Tories, I poured myself into writing. Some ten thousand words in, I realized I was on to something. The rest of the book almost wrote itself.

As for my latest book, The Rivers Will Run Red, the idea came to me the last time I flew back to Romania in 2021, but I didn't get the chance to actually write it until NaNoWriMo 2022, when I was already on the other side of the world. I wanted to write a found family book about vampires and werewolves. Weird, I know, but it was all the more satisfying when the story came together.

Other than writing, I love road trips, videogames, 🤘 METAL 🤘, and f*cking around with gender expression. I'm nonbinary (my pronouns are they/them) and lean masc in my day-to-day life, but I also love doing the odd femme thing every now and again. Like a retro-inspired pin-up photoshoot, why not!

Kudos to Marisa Parisella for the gorgeous photos and Enshantay for the hair and makeup. Love y'all ♥.

 

So, what's next?

All three books I've already finished are first in a series, and I plan to continue all of them. Some authors prefer to stick to one genre. I decided, long ago, to do what the great Walter Mosby did and write whatever the heck I feel like writing. Much like my gender identity, my works are genre-bending, anti-formulaic, and there's always some queerness in there if you squint.

To Bloom Again is coming this year on December 10 from Wild Blue Press.

I'm still looking for a home for The Rivers Will Run Red, and querying is, as always, an exercise in putting up with as much bullsh*t as the human mind can take. Stay tuned.