Kristen Tassin

I’ve always been passionate about art and storytelling. Since childhood, my imagination has been active and running wild with daydreams and night dreams, both vivid and surreal. The one person who always admired my art and listened to my stories was my dad, my greatest advocate. At age 16, my dad told me I should be a storyteller and write books. He was my encourager. He believed in silver linings, and you could achieve anything if you put your heart into it. However, my self-esteem and lack of grammar, spelling, and writing skills prevented me from living that dream. In college, I discovered these writing issues were related to a medical disorder. I was diagnosed with dysgraphia and mild dyslexia. 

I worked hard and found a love of reading that never existed before, and I even attempted to write a short story, creating my own myth on the weeping willow tree. The story never went anywhere. Depression struck when my dad passed away when I was 20—my encourager was gone along with all of my arts and literary dreams– tucked away and buried deeply.  After keeping that dream buried for over 20 years, finally, I started writing. 

In 2020 when Covid struck, I had more time to focus on writing. I finished and edited the first in a trilogy of ya fantasy novels that I had imagined for so long. I was thrilled to have it finished, but I wanted to publish them all back to back and started working on the sequels. I was grateful that I had moved in to care for my mom the year prior. Over the long-isolated months, I spent the mornings writing and the afternoons bonded with my mom over Hallmark© Christmas movies. They were the highlight of our days, and they passed by all too quickly. I like to believe that we both treasured those moments. The morning my mom passed away in December 2020, my entire writing genre changed in the blink of an eye. 

I was struggling with my ya fantasy trilogy. The thoughts in my head about the world were deep and complex. Organizing them onto paper or on the computer was daunting. Critique group comments were important but discouraging to my struggling thoughts. I needed a break, a refresher, something light and sweet. I started a romance– something my mom always wanted me to write. The morning mom passed away, I took a break from my fantasy world and created a simple Christmas romance intended explicitly for her. She was able to read the two pages I had written. Her laughter was the last thing I heard. At ninety years old, she passed peacefully and instantly while holding my story in her hands. Although it is sad, it motivated me in ways that I never believed possible.

A romance writer was born.