My first personal library was a collection of Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Beverly Cleary, and so many others. I was in the first grade when I first discovered my love for books, writing, and stories. My mom had signed me up for a reading subscription, and I would rush home, ready to devour one of the books that had arrived that week.

Since then, stories have been a major part of my life.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of my journey to become both a writer and a scholar. I didn’t just want to write stories I wanted to study them. To immerse myself in them. I wanted to understand how and why a story breathes, works, and survives. From novels to folklore to academic writing, stories became my world.

But that isn’t to say it was easy.

At fourteen, I was diagnosed with a rare eye condition called Stargardt’s disease and slowly began to lose my vision. Add to that the well-meaning voices of helpful individuals telling me there were no jobs in the humanities and asking whether I really had what it took to succeed in higher education, and it’s no surprise that the road to earning my PhD in English Literature has been an uphill one.

I know what it’s like to climb uphill with only a hope and a prayer that someone will hear me. And the older you get, the harder that climb can feel. But age is not a liability. It’s an asset.That’s why I’ve chosen to use my experience, reframing every battle scar and setback as a too, to support other writers and scholars. The journey may not be over. But that doesn’t mean we have to do it alone.