April 15, 2026
The honest story behind the biggest creative leap of my writing life
There is a question I have been bracing for, and it goes something like this: "Wait. You write books about Scout the goat... and now you're writing a thriller?"
Yes. And I understand the confusion completely.
The truth is, creative lives do not always follow tidy paths. Mine certainly has not. And I think there is something worth talking about in that messiness, because I suspect a lot of you have had a creative idea that felt too different, too unexpected, or too far from who people think you are. This post is for you.
The Story That Would Not Leave
Some stories ask to be written. Others demand it.
Blackwater Parish started as a persistent feeling more than a clear idea. The south I grew up connected to has a specific kind of beauty in it, the kind threaded through with Spanish moss and unanswered questions and things people choose not to speak about. I kept circling back to that feeling. The gothic tradition in southern literature has always resonated with me because it holds complexity without apology. Light and shadow exist together. Nothing is entirely what it seems.
I tried to ignore the story for a while. I told myself it did not fit. I had a brand. I had Scout. I had the bumpy pumpkin. What was I doing?
What Nursing Taught Me About Holding Complexity
Here is something I have learned in years of nursing: human beings are not one thing. A patient is not just their diagnosis. A family is not just their crisis. People contain multitudes, and the work of caring for them requires holding all of that at once.
Stories work the same way. The children's books I write are full of complexity, the complexity of a child feeling left out, the complexity of disappointment and resilience. The emotional depth required to write Scout working through his feelings at the County Fair is the same emotional intelligence required to write adult characters navigating something darker and more layered.
The genre changed. The craft did not.
The Courage It Takes
Writing for children requires a particular kind of bravery. You have to distill big ideas into small, clean language. You have to trust a child to receive your meaning without overstating it.
Writing a southern gothic thriller requires a different kind of bravery. You have to sit with discomfort. You have to let characters be flawed in ways that cannot be neatly resolved in thirty pages. You have to trust readers with darkness.
Both require showing up authentically and writing past the fear that it might not land.
That parallel did not escape me. The same principle I write about for children, that imperfection and difference are not disqualifications, applies to my author journey too.
What This Means for the Work You Already Love
Scout is not going anywhere. The Bumpy Pumpkin is not going anywhere. The Goat on the Go series is continuing, and there are children's books ahead that I cannot wait to share.
What I am adding to that body of work is a story that reflects a different part of who I am as a writer and as a human being who has spent years watching people navigate impossible situations with grace, fear, humor, and everything in between.
Nurses see it all. And eventually, some of what we see needs somewhere to go.
Blackwater Parish is that somewhere.
The Permission We All Need
If you are someone who has ever felt like your next creative step was too unexpected, too different from what people expect of you, I want to say this directly: your creativity does not owe anyone consistency. Your story does not have to fit the box you were put in last year.
Being a children's book author made me a better thriller writer. Being a nurse made me a better storyteller across every genre. Every part of who you are informs the work, even when the work looks completely different on the outside.
The best pumpkin in the patch is the bumpy one. The best creative journey is the one that surprises even you.
Blackwater Parish is coming this summer. I hope you will be there for it.
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