Welcome Traveller

Books didn’t become my refuge until much later than my peers. Somehow, I slipped past the notice of my teachers right up until I was seven or eight, then a teacher asked me to read with them in the book corner. I looked at this page full of symbols I knew were letters and even knew the names of individual ones, but I couldn’t string them together. I couldn’t sound them out. I didn’t really understand this reading thing. So, I made up a story on the spot and it dawned on my teacher that I’d spent nearly four years in the school and no one had realised I couldn’t read. Thankfully through some in-school intervention, a childhood friend who loved reading and my dear sweet Great Nan, ‘Nanny Glory’, I learnt to read. By the time I was ten, I was attempting to read The Hobbit. Everything seemed to click in place and I began to inhale books. But it turned out I hadn’t learnt to read like everyone else, they’d missed something. Dyslexia.

Later in life I would find out for myself, along with discovering my Autism and ADHD. Suddenly it made sense why life had felt so hard. Why I always had to reread paragraphs or copy them out to really understand them. Why I found change hard. Why people asked if I was OK constantly because my face didn’t look like I was. Why people took offence to my conversations or emails. Why I jumped around from job to job, my CV reads like someone simply rolled a D100 on a table of possible careers, random and generally working in service of others or with high adrenaline.

Now, I am happier with a quieter life. One filled with self-discovery as I continue my journey as someone who is neurodivergent. As I now discover the world of Caelumbria, I find an inner peace that has eluded me for quite some time. I’m never happier than when I am writing a new chapter and I hope you grow to love the world that I am crafting.

To all the kids that were failed by the adults around them. I hope you find the heroes you need within the pages of my books to come.