Q: First tell us something about yourself.
I am a Clinical Lab Scientist currently residing in Riverside, CA. I love K-Pop, experiencing other cultures, trying new dishes, and dancing and singing by myself when no one’s looking.
Q: How and when did your journey start as a writer?
The years 2022 and 2023 were perhaps the darkest periods in my life. However, they can be considered some of the most reformative and have been the bearers of some of the happiest moments that I am experiencing today and in discovering what I believe to be one of my actual purposes- writing fun children’s books!
Drenching myself in self-reflection and spirituality, I knew I needed to get into healthier habits and that I had some serious growing to do. Some ways I did this was to get back into hobbies and exercising. I realized I kept talking about all of the things I planned to do to make changes instead of actually doing them.
I told myself I was going to put an end to this “stagnant” mentality, if you will, and in February of 2022, I started my writing blog, then called The StoryWriting Starseed (I mentioned a swan dive into spirituality, right). Later in the year, I reimagined my blog, and wanted it to be something more representative of who I am. I came up with Reads on a String, a title modeled after the Beads-on-a-string descriptor that a certain macromolecule in the body (the nucleosome- the structure about which our DNA is organized) is described as appearing as.
Q: When did you write your first story? Is it published or not?
I wrote my first short story, The Ground in the Middle, for adults in the middle of 2022 and self-published it to my blog after interpreting a sleep paralysis episode I had had one evening with one of my dearest friends.
It wasn’t until this year 2023, that I took a second look at really putting effort back into my hobbies that I came up with the concept for GreenHat Friends Adventures and the first book of the series, The Fridge Fever. I could always be found reading a book in childhood – it was something I adored and that I realized I had gotten away from in adulthood.
After hours and hours of crafting the concept and characters, I did some research into ways to bring my story to life (do it, don’t just talk about it!). I came across Bear With Us Productions, a small, talented group of individuals based in the UK and it just felt right.. The project’s audiobook format will be completed in the coming weeks! GreenHat Friends Adventures- The Fridge Fever is out now in paperback on amazon with the Ebook format being released on December 15th.
Q: Tell us something more about your books?
I knew I wanted my books and stories to have substance and to aim in keeping aflame lifelong curiosity and exploration of self-concept. Thinking back to the fantastic, lesson-filled cartoons I grew up with like Scooby Doo, Hey Arnold, and Courage the Cowardly dog – I noted that’s what seems to be lacking in a lot of things I see on tv or in books nowadays. You know, those stories you would run home from school to watch that didn’t make logical sense (talking dogs, things popping out of fruit) but lowkey did on a grander scale. I have another series on the horizon that I think has potential to be what those childhood titles were to me, and I think it is important for kids to have such stories. I am currently enjoying crafting stories for that series which I think will be ready to go by early spring of 2024.
I have seen everyday people – the impoverished, friends in adulthood, the children I tutored some years back – struggle due to lack of information, lack of educational or familial foundation or ultimately, know-how. Further, I see, even now, the lack of representation of groups of people in my field – and that is just at the mid-level caregiver range in but one field of career trajectory. But as we’ve noticed – the trend is everywhere.
In my opinion, internalizing themes of equal representation should start as soon as possible in life rather than as an afterthought in adulthood or in professional settings. We’ve made some progress, but definitely have a long way to go. My goal is to aid in creating an even playing field for kids and their guardians through story.
Q: How did these stories and characters come to your mind?
The writing in this series is heavily based on the OG Dr. Seuss’s work along with observations I’ve made in my own endeavors and struggles. I also drew inspiration from the areas where some other beloved, big name titles failed. I knew I wanted the characters to be diverse and shown in a “it’s possible for you too” light to introduce young ones to possible roles they can and will one day play in the world.
With this in mind, I, of course, had to make one of the characters in the GreenHat Friends a clinical lab scientist. A lot of people don’t understand the laboratory middle-men and -women in healthcare and it seems we are in a modernized age where an overwhelming percent of the young are shooting for social stardom rather than for refining the way their brain authentically ticks.
Strive for something bigger. Your actions now really do play into the future. A simple but resounding quote I heard in recent months during one of my morning meditations really sticks with me through each of my days and sums up these thoughts. “My choices today affect tomorrow”.
I want to help keep alive the hunger for knowledge that I was privileged to experience from my parents guidance and how crucial all of it has been to my development and resilience throughout life. I think in order to guide children, it is paramount and our responsibility as elders to also continue to learn while coaching based on our own trials and experiences. Children really are figuratively and lit.er.ally the future. The Elon Musks and Warren Buffets of the world didn’t come about through instantaneous self-discovery. They latched on early to the parallel of the importance of knowledge to the forwarding of the world.
Particularly for this book, inspiration honestly came from a book I made in third grade (complete with staples, scribbly drawings and copier paper) that I got to read to the class. Inspo further came from being introduced to the restaurant “Sweetgreens” when I first moved to California last year. I felt compelled to morph my childhood story in an effort to introduce kids to foods that I myself didn’t think of incorporating into my dishes or salads until adulthood. I didn’t want to talk of the typical banana or apple – the benefit of those snacks has been long established. I wanted to spice things up while also sparking kids’ interest to want to explore “the norms” of other cultures and foods that they might enjoy trying! This is reflected down to the detail with regard to the characters’ physical appearances.
Q: Do you want to leave any message for your readers?
No matter your circumstances – impoverished, down on your luck, feeling lost, unhappy with your household dynamics, seeking purpose and or redirection – What energy you put now into making a better life for yourself or succeeding generations will play into your failures or triumphs in some shape or form down the road. No matter if people are adamant that “you’ll never use this stuff again,” I can tell you, you will and what you do with information, circumstance, or experience now, is up to you.
