About Aya **Updated: 3/31**

In my own words, this time.

Hi, my name is Aya. That’s not my real name; it’s a pen name I use,  because 97% of everything I write is very autobiographical. If the events aren’t based on personal experiences, the characters at least are based on people I know, so I like the anonymity that a pen name affords.

I’m young, younger than people expect. I live in what once was a little mountain town, but it’s now just a scenically located slum. About two years ago, I decided that I hated this city and that if I stayed here, I would have absolutely no future whatsoever… so I decided it would be in my best interest- maybe not fiscally, but at least for excitement- to move to the Philippines. [It's where my mother is from, and the most beautiful country I've ever seen.] I was to spend my life sitting on the beach, drinking rum and writing novels, with some lovely Oriental boy who was surely waiting there for me to discover. But, instead, I met the most amazing, gorgeous man… at Wal-Mart. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it was enough to make me not only throw away the life I still had but also the dream of the life that I wanted.

We’re expecting our first baby in June, and we’re very excited. She’s already incredibly beautiful.

So, that’s my personal life. Now a bit about my writing.

I’ve been writing stories since I could pick up a pen. I was extremely blessed to go to an elementary school that encouraged my little hobby; I wrote three stories and they had them published. Seeing my name on the bookshelves of their library was one of the proudest moments of my life. One story was about a magical unicorn, one was about a girl who copied everything her classmate did, and the third I’ve long forgotten.  At some point in my childhood, my stories stopped being about magic and took a somewhat stranger turn. My mother describes it best: she said I would write these wonderful stories, then end them with every character gruesomely being decapitated or dismembered. In high school, I got a spot on a street team for a comic publisher that was just starting out. I worked with them for three years, and it ended up being more of a valuable opportunity to meet interesting, talented people than to further my writing career.

I quit in favor of a desk job, but continue writing freelance. Mostly ghost writing for websites, things that don’t have my name attached to it so that someone else can quietly assume credit, even though I really wouldn’t want my name attached anyway.

Ultimately, I’d like to write comic books. But we’ll see if I ever get there. Writing is, for now, just a passion of mine. A very necessary passion, because I sometimes feel like if I didn’t have a way to vent I would go insane.