One of the questions I've started hearing more often is:

"What genre do you write?"

The honest answer?

Yes.

Okay... maybe that's a little sarcastic.

The longer answer is that I write the story that needs to be written.

For years, the publishing world has encouraged authors to "find their lane." Build a brand. Stay in one genre. Give readers exactly what they expect every single time.

I understand why. From a marketing standpoint, it makes perfect sense.

But creativity has never worked that way for me.

Some stories arrive as deeply emotional contemporary novels that explore grief, identity, love, and healing. Others become memoirs because the truth deserves to be told exactly as it happened. Some evolve into psychological fiction that asks difficult questions about the human mind. Others wander into spirituality, searching for meaning in places we can't always explain.

And then...

Sometimes a story simply wants to make people laugh until they can't breathe.

That's how I Sharted! happened.

If there's one thing I've learned as both a writer and a reader, it's that life doesn't fit neatly into categories. Neither do we.

We're capable of experiencing heartbreak and uncontrollable laughter in the same afternoon. We can survive incredible trauma while still finding joy in the smallest moments. We can question everything we believe one day and feel completely certain the next.

So why should our stories be any different?

Every book I've written has challenged me in a different way.

Inheritance of Silence asked me to explore healing and the families we choose.

House of Windows invited me to dig even deeper into the complexities of identity, relationships, and the emotional walls we build to protect ourselves.

Burn the Map: Life Beyond What You Were Given required something entirely different. It demanded vulnerability. It asked me to revisit some of the most difficult chapters of my own life and trust that honesty could become a bridge for someone else's healing.

And then there are books that simply refuse to take themselves too seriously.

Because life needs those stories, too.

I don't believe readers only want one emotion.

I think they want authenticity.

Sometimes authenticity looks like tears.

Sometimes it looks like hope.

Sometimes it looks like healing.

Sometimes it looks like laughing so hard that everyone in the room wonders what's so funny.

As an author, I don't want to spend my career asking, "Will this fit my brand?"

I'd rather ask:

"Is this a story worth telling?"

If the answer is yes, then I'll figure out the genre later.

At the end of the day, I don't want readers to pick up one of my books because it fits neatly on a particular shelf in a bookstore.

I want them to pick it up because they trust me to take them on a journey.

Maybe that journey will leave them wiping away tears.

Maybe it will leave them questioning everything they thought they knew.

Maybe it will inspire them to begin again.

Or maybe it'll leave them laughing out loud in the middle of a coffee shop.

Honestly...

I'm perfectly happy with any of those outcomes.

Because stories aren't defined by the shelf they're placed on.

They're defined by the people who carry them long after the final page.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Wherever the next story leads, I hope you'll come along for the ride.