About Me
She/Her
Represented by Tricia Lawrence, Senior Agent (Erin Murphy Literary Agency)
I’ve got an ace up my sleeve…
Even as a girl poring over my sister’s copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, I was always amazed by the stories and legends of the past. The study of the world’s history soon became one of my driving passions throughout my teenage and college years as I pursued a Bachelor’s degree in History.
But as I delved into all of history’s clues as to how our present day came to be, I began to uncover other “clues” about myself – clues that made me realize that, somehow, a part of me was different from nearly everyone I knew. I couldn’t quite understand what those clues meant, in part because I lacked the language to describe who I was.
It wasn’t until a Master’s degree and *first grownup job* later that I stumbled across the word “Asexual”. As I learned what asexuality, then aromanticism, meant, I slowly began to use the words to describe myself: first in my mind, then out loud, and then to a handful of trusted friends. I engaged more deeply with the “Ace” and “Aro” communities, and learned that me, and people like me, are part of the “A” in “LGBTQIA+”.
Suddenly, a whole lot of my life began to make sense!
That’s neat…but what does it have to do with writing?
As I grew in my understanding of my own queer identity, and those of other queer people, I connected the dots between what I had learned about myself with my passion as a student of history. I wondered why I had persisted so long with such a limited view of what being queer meant, why I had been exposed to so few queer stories in history as a student, and why there were not more, diverse and positive queer narratives among fiction and nonfiction historical accounts.
All of this percolated in my mind as I dived deeper into queer stories – and the un- and under-explored history of our community – far beyond just the late 20th century. A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a historical monarch whose queer experience mirrored mine in so many ways. Her story inspired me to (at long last!) sit down and write…and write…and write…until my first Historical Fiction manuscript was complete. You can learn a bit more about it on my Works In Progress page.
Aristotle has been famously quoted as saying, “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” There is so much more to learn, and I have barely scratched the surface even as I continue to discover myself in my writing. I would be delighted to have you alongside to grow with me. There is one thing I am certain of as a student of history: there are many, many more stories yet to be told.
Love,
Andrea