MORE ABOUT US

Hi!

I'm Charla. Like most authors, I have dreamed of being a writer from a young age. My love for art has always been at the forefront of my life through writing, reading, music, and photography. 

I studied writing and publishing through my undergrad and went on to get my MA in Publishing. I have also studied creative writing and teach college English. (Yes, I can tell you EXACTLY what to do with that comma.) Writing was always my dream. In fact, I wanted it so badly that I refused to let myself have it for a long time. My flawed thought process was, "I can live with it staying my dream. It can exist in the ether like a twinkling star that I gaze upon relentlessly. But there it stays, shimmering in its untried, unmarred place. However, I cannot live with trying and failing. To fail at this would mean the end. An end I won't survive."

Word to the wise, don't tell the universe your worst fears. She will test them eagerly, wearing a devious smile.

Then I got older. I had children. I tried other careers. I spent so much time shoving myself into boxes and rooms I had no business in. Each time I did, my life seemed to only become more challenging and less fulfilling. 

When I began my master's program, I altered the dream a bit. I slid ever so closer to it with the mindset of, "I will be the editor. I will be the path that others can walk across to get where they are going. I am a nurturer, a friend, and a mentor, and I will do that in the writing world." 

Armed with two degrees, a sick love for CMOS, grammar, and formatting, I opened my own editing business. And do you know that the following month, Shrike would pour from me like a freshly dug well, and I spewed the words. I felt alive—the most alive I have ever felt. I woke each day on fire, burning with stories and emotions I had never allowed myself to freely feel. I was alight, anew, transformed. I thought, "Yes, this is how I could spend the rest of my life. This is the feeling I want to anchor myself into." And that is precisely my goal. However bold or wild it may be.

I am a perpetual dreamer and hopeless romantic. I love fantasy, romance, speculative, and regency fiction. I love to communicate through feelings, trauma, shared experiences, and hauntingly beautiful writing. My goal is to make my readers feel seen, heard, and above all else, loved. 

Charla