author
Darian Grigsby

Unlike a lot of my fellow authors, I despised reading when I was younger, but I always had a love for stories. I always allowed my imagination to run wild and come up with crazy worlds and situations for the characters who lived in my head. Dyslexia made reading and writing nearly impossible, but slowly I overcame the struggle and started writing down my stories for just myself. Recently I found out my little sister would sneak into my word documents to enjoy the silly little stories I would come up with.

After I got pregnant, I set aside my hidden hobby to become the mom my son needed me to be. I took school more seriously and eventually moved in with his father where we got married and added another son to our chaos. We were two very young very broke parents who spent most of our time working just to keep the lights on, and every spare second was spent with our family. There wasn’t much time for hobbies for either of us.

Fast-forward three years after our youngest was born, life was getting easier, money was more steady, we had bought a house, our oldest was in school, our jobs were things we had always dreamed of doing, and life was pretty good. That was until August of 2020. Hurricane Laura ripped through my hometown and destroyed the little haven we had built for ourselves. We were virtually homeless, but lucky enough to have the support of our family. My grandma let us move into her rental house for free until ours was fixed, and that’s where I found a love for reading.

My job was closed due to damages from the hurricane, but my kids were able to start back at school. I had more free time on my hands than I had ever had before. One day, out of sheer boredom, I picked up my first book in years. Taming Demons for Beginners by Annette Marie. I devoured the book and immediately picked up the next in the series. Then I moved onto the companion series, and then her other books. When I ran out of her books to read, I moved on to other authors, and then eventually opened up my word document for the first time since high school.

That first story will never see the light of day. It’s a mess of jumbled thoughts and plots that made little sense, but it was a step I needed to get here. I feel incredibly thankful that we are in a position that this is possible. To every little girl out there that has always been told you can’t; yes, you absolutely can.