My mom tells me that when I was little, I showed her a family portrait. I told her, ‘you can always tell which one is me—I draw myself the prettiest’.

I have always been gender nonconforming. I grew up in a religious family, and I attended several different churches. When told to dress modestly I opted for shapeless men’s tees and blue jeans. I was mocked in high school for my androgynous sense of style—boys would call out names of men’s clothing brands as I passed them in the hall. When I started college (a baptist college) I still felt out of place, and suddenly I found myself writing a story about a gender nonconforming woman with depression who was chosen by a god, but not by his church. It’s not a unique story by any means, but it was my story. Quincy was me. I wasn’t the prettiest anymore. I wasn’t even wanted.

After I graduated college, I lived with two trans people. My best friend was a trans person. I asked them for help writing trans characters. I constantly stressed about how I was writing gender. I didn’t finish any projects during this time, only started and stopped like my ideas were waiting for me to figure something out before they’d let me write again. Then, after I published my first book, a new character struck me. They were nonbinary. I wrote 2/3rds of the story before I realized I was, too. Those first 2/3rds of writing were weighed down by the same anxieties that I was doing representation ‘wrong’. Then as I finished writing The Scene—my favorite in the whole book, where the character meets past lives and discusses their identity aloud with themself—I thought, ‘oh. This is about me, again‘. I came out as nonbinary then. Asa was me, in that way. And they were the prettiest person in the whole world. And they were loved, and they were wanted.

I’ve always been someone who reads into themes in stories. I don’t expect everyone to do the same, necessarily. I’m aware I’m a bit pretentious—but I think every story has things that can affect you profoundly, from something melancholy like Annihilation to a kid’s movie like Lego Batman. I don’t believe in death of the author. I want to learn about who the author is through their work. In the best cases, a book is a conversation between the author and me.

And when I read my own works, I’m having a conversation with myself. I’m having a conversation with my mom, when she shows me a crayon drawing of circles with arms and legs, and one of the circles has longer hair, bigger eyelashes, and brighter clothes than everyone else. Sometimes I can’t tell which character is me until the story is done, but once I figure it out—they’re always the prettiest to me.