What have I been doing as a Romance Writer?
Educating myself.
I received my Bachelor's Degree in Media Communications from Greenville University. My Honors Thesis was titled NO BLURRED LINES: Rape Culture in U.S. American Television. This focused on the portrayal of abuse and romance in popular media.
I then went to Goldsmiths College, University of London, where I received a dual MA degree in Sociology and Communications. My dissertation was titled FICTIONAL ARCHIVES: The Use of Semi-Autobiographical Television as an Alternative Archive. Here, I compared the way women wrote their own stories as a form of queer archiving, focusing on the romantic ephemera of the day-to-day.
Writing romance.
I've been a romance ghostwriter for about a decade now, with over 25 full-length novels written. From MM small town, cowboy romances to MF billionaire workplace romances, I’ve successfully written dozens of romances for happy clients.
Under my pen name, I've published over 30 romances, ranging from shorts around 5k to full lengths around 80k, primarily for Everland’s Bryant Street Shorts. This included chatting with marketing and acquisition to see what the publication’s needs were, pitching story concepts, and writing.
Fixing romance.
After several years of ghostwriting, I began taking on more behind-the-scenes work. As a consultant, I meet with authors and independent publishers to go over what works and doesn’t work in their projects. This includes beta reading, developmental editing, and re-writing entire novels to match the styles and tone of other writers/books in a series.
Expanding what romance looks like.
Romance doesn’t just have to be between lovers or life partners. I believe the truest thing about romance is that it is earnest, unabashed love and honesty. When I taught screenwriting to college students, I emphasized this need for something real and something unflinching in their scripts. When I wrote on 2024’s soon-to-be-a-hit TV series, Parallel, I channeled this belief into the incredible friendship between the protagonist Marnie and her best friend JJ. When I take on any project, I am creating a romance, between myself and my project, between the vision and final project, all baked with love and honesty and something just a little bit sparkly.
What does that look like in a professional format?
Check out my recent CV to see how some of that works translates, as well as more boring bits, like how I’m proficient in Final Cut, Jira, and Google Analytics.