I became a writer when I was seven years old.
I can still remember sitting in my elementary school library, completely in love with the books around me. Somewhere between getting lost in my favorite stories and filling pages in English class, I decided I wanted to create stories of my own.

So I did, with loose sheets of construction paper, crayons, and a very big imagination.

For about an hour each day, I disappeared into whatever world I was creating. I filled the pages with stories, shapes, bright colors, and hand-drawn illustrations that, in my seven-year-old mind, absolutely belonged alongside the words. The pictures and stories were inseparable. I wasn't thinking about becoming an author back then. I just knew there was something magical about taking an idea that existed only in my imagination and turning it into something I could hold in my hands.

I brought those little stories to my school librarian, who became one of the first people to make me feel like my words were worth something. She gave my creations a place on the top shelf of the library, and to seven-year-old me, that felt like the biggest accomplishment in the world.