I was probably a little too young when my mom first introduced me to her favorite author, Stephen King. To be fair, she started with The Eyes of the Dragon, which is technically more of a children’s story. She always told me it was something he’d written for his daughter when she was young, so in her mind, it felt like a safe place to begin.
But that was just the beginning.
Not long after, she was reading me Dreamcatcher—and even let me watch the movie. Looking back, it might not have been the most age-appropriate choice, but at the time, it felt completely normal. It was just part of our routine.
Every night, we had this ritual: she’d sit with me and read aloud. Those moments became something I looked forward to all day. Stories weren’t just entertainment in our house—they were an experience, something shared, something alive.
I didn’t realize it then, but those nights shaped me in a big way. Somewhere between fantasy kingdoms and Stephen King’s darker worlds, I started to fall in love with storytelling.
And that’s where it began—the quiet, growing feeling that maybe one day, I wanted to be a writer too.
