Me in a nutshell: she/her, disaster bi, Japanese-American, elder millennial, recovering academic, SFF fanatic, anime nerd, writer, Geek’s Geek

I have been reading obsessively since I understood what a book was (I come by my book obsession honestly, as my mother is also a massive book nerd, and my dad is a pretty avid reader too!). I knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. Specifically, the first time I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in 4th grade, I knew “this is what I’m meant to do!”

I’ll read almost any genre, but my first loves and biggest obsessions are in fantasy and science fiction. I also read a lot of romance, mystery fiction, Japanese manga, poetry, and nonfiction (history, biography, popular science, etc). Likewise, as a writer my work is mostly centered in fantasy and science fiction, usually with significant romance elements. At least a couple projects are strongly in the “Romantasy” camp. I have tried my hand at poetry, but only in small doses. And I want, someday, to write a mystery novel. A couple of my WIPs on the back burner definitely take inspiration from shonen manga/anime styles and tropes.

I love genre fiction so much that I even specialized in it in graduate school, possessing a Master’s degree in Literature, and ABD (“all but dissertation” in a Literature PhD) with a specialization in Science Fiction Studies. As an academic, I taught college English courses for 10 years, published several academic articles, and presented a dozen or so conference papers. However, I withdrew from my Phd program and my teaching position in 2018.

Since then, I worked in the book industry as a book curator and buyer, and office manager, for a book subscription box company (2018-2022), where I gained enormous insight into the publishing industry, and reading/buying trends in the book community. I also made many useful contacts with publishing reps and a handful of agents, as well as book cover artists.

Having done work in freelance editing and writing off and on, on a case-by-case basis, I made the decision to go fully freelance in the Fall of 2022.

In addition, I write book reviews. You will probably notice that most of the books I read/review are fantasy and science fiction, however, I read a bit of everything and try to review more than just genre fiction. While my time is at a premium right now, and I mostly only read whatever is catching my fancy at the moment, I am open to requests for book reviews from indie/self-published authors who are having difficulty getting mainstream coverage. I used to do this often in the past, on my old blog site (2011-2015), but have not done so in awhile. I do not charge for this, I would only request an ARC/ebook of the book to be reviewed (with the understanding that I will write an HONEST review).