Hey everyone! With Mythspeaker‘s launch just over a month away (WHOA!), I thought it would be a great time to share the note I’ve written that appears right before the story begins. This book is so important to me and the journey I’ve been on as a writer and as a person. And I hope this little note offers some explanation–and maybe even excitement!–as to why I wrote this story of misfits and monsters, myths and mysteries, whimsy and wonder and (most of all) faith in the good we can do by believing in each other and ourselves.
Mythspeaker‘s Author’s Note
I didn’t fit in as a kid. I grew up outside a little town in Wisconsin, small enough that everyone knew everyone, which meant that once they decided you were different . . . you stayed different forever. With other kids, that meant I got bullied a lot. And grown-ups, well, they called me “special,” which can be good, but I didn’t know how to be special. In the end, I mostly felt alone. So, I read a lot of stories.
There’s a magic in finding a character who makes you feel seen. For me as a kid, that meant someone smart, anxious, Cajun, or Indigenous. That last one was especially important to me. I’m part of the Indigenous Diaspora, meaning I’m Indigenous but without tribal citizenship. And for a lot of very hard and complicated reasons, I’m not connected to that part of my family. So, every Indigenous character I discovered (not that there were many) helped me reach a piece of myself that I had no other way to access.
This book you’re holding grew out of my search for what that connection means—out of my faith, my wonder for the world, and, of course, my deep desire to see Indigenous kids not just be in a big fantasy story . . . but be the heroes of one.
Not to mention to celebrate Indigenous American cultures. Did you know that one thousand years ago, the Indigenous mound city of Cahokia (located in present-day Illinois) was bigger than London or Paris at the time? How incredible is that! I started imagining what it might have been like had that city kept growing for hundreds of years, and that idea became another piece of this story.
Mythspeaker is entirely a work of creative fiction. It does not—and is not intended to—represent any specific real-world Indigenous tribes, bands, or villages. All characters, peoples, languages, myths, and elements of the story are my own creation, inspired by the rich cultures that have called North America home since long before the words “North America” were ever spoken. This includes the character Deer Mother (inspired by the Indigenous American Deer Woman), whom I created without any knowledge of the similarly named figure of Northern European folklore.
So, as they say on Gonoka, breathe deep. This is a world of adventure, and you’re in for a wild ride.
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As for what exactly, that wild ride entails, you’ll just have to wait until February 24th, 2026, when Mythspeaker launches in bookstores for all to read and (hopefully) enjoy. If you’d like to learn more about the book–including check out some reviews from Publishers Weekly and several absolutely amazing authors–you can take a look HERE.
