About
Christina
The first thing you need to know about me is that I love art and learning. I was one of those straight-A, crazy theater kids in high school. You could find me either acting in or behind the scenes of every production there was to be a part of.
After high school, I studied for a year at an acting conservatory in New York City. The city was wonderful and the lessons I learned about life there were invaluable, but it made me realize acting wasn’t my passion.
I moved home to Washington State and attended Centralia Community College. Once again, I was involved in every production the college had to offer. If it was put on by the theater or music department, the students for fun or assignment, or a guest performance, I was there. It was a thrill to help create the worlds in which people performed. I worked on lighting, sound, sets, theater maintenance, and costumes. I learned everything I could beyond what the limited theater classes offered. The unseen part of theater magic became as fundamental to me as breathing. By the time I graduated with my Associates of Arts degree at the age of 21, I had been a part of over 60 productions in my lifetime.
Next, I went to study stage and theater management at Western Washington University. This concentration allowed me to take design classes in all facets of a production. While learning about scenic and costume design, I gained a great passion for history and the inquiry of how our surroundings directly affect our life circumstances, and vice versa. My professors, mentors, and colleagues were incredibly supportive and knowledgeable. I'm ever grateful to them. Between working in the scene shop and stage managing, I was a part of another 15 productions in two years. Then, I worked three more with a local theater before moving.
After school, I joined the union for stagehands in Seattle. Boy, was it a blast working in the big leagues! I got to be a part of huge music concerts, union playhouses, city events, and political events. After I received an audio / video certificate, I also worked private events for some of Washington’s finest global corporations. It became easy to imagine myself at the center of any type of live event helping to curate a perfect experience for the entertainment and audience. The sky was the limit to the opportunities coming to me in this behind-the-scenes career. I would have had all the fortune of a fulfilling life with none of the fame. It was perfect.
I know what you’re thinking; Christina, why in the world did you stop your idyllic career to become a writer?
It’s a good question.
A month after I turned 25, I got in an accident that changed my life instantly. At first, the doctors thought it was simply a tear in my shoulder, and that it would heal. It wasn’t until a year later and I still had tremendous pain with complications in my arm that we investigated my nerves. It turned out I had nerve damage in my neck and shoulder. I've had a headache ever since. So, lifting theater and AV equipment or making delicate clothing with a bum arm, numb hands, and chronic pain was no longer an option.
After this crazy news, I did what any determined person would. I went back to school to train for a less physical job. My master’s degree focused on management and leadership for small to large companies. I wasn’t able to drive consistently because of my pain levels and due to my arm being numb most of the time, so I did the whole program online. Most of grad school consisted of writing large research papers. Since I had a never-ending headache that would dip into migraines, I studied in the mornings when the pain was lesser. Due to my numb arm, I got a speak-to-text program for my computer. When I wanted to give up, I remembered how many years of life I still had ahead of me and how many people I had yet to help on their journey. In a way, you inspired me.
I graduated from Western Governors University in one and a half years with a Master of Science. Then, I applied to nearly 100 jobs in various industries. I was completely unsuccessful for two reasons. First, most industries thought my theater experience was a joke even though most of it was in management. Second, I was honest with hiring directors about my disability and how it would sometimes force me to take unexpected time off. However, none of them wanted to hire someone with limitations for a management position, even though I was qualified.
Out of necessity, I worked several jobs that would hire anyone. I met some beautiful and supportive people, some of whom I’m still in touch with today. However, having to quit job after job because everything was too physically demanding became mentally draining. My last job was working as a jewelry store clerk. Y’all, all I had to do was dress for success and smile, and that was still too difficult with my chronic pain on a set schedule.
That’s when my level of disability hit me. I was no longer, nor would I ever be, a “normal” human again. That was rock bottom. I lost my drive, and I needed help.
I moved in with my parents and got a wonderful primary care doctor. With a new sole determination of getting better than I was, I saw a mental health professional and multiple specialists again about my chronic pain. Shout out to all my doctors, therapists, assistants, nurses, and receptionists whether you helped my pain or not. You were there, and I’m grateful.
After nearly two years of mental health counseling, I realized I still wanted to help people with my art even though it couldn’t be with theater. I simply refused to give up this dream.
In counseling, I started making elaborate journals and spreadsheets to mark my progress in life. One day looking for scrapbooking paper, I came across the novel I started writing at age 18. I remembered writing this novel like there was no tomorrow during the summer between high school and college. I had a hard time reading through my handwritten, dyslexic mistakes and all, from 10 years before. I realized the world from my imagination was beautiful, but the delivery was devastatingly bad.
In the days to come, I found the story, characters, places, and concepts flooding all the empty spaces of my wandering mind. This novel was a new way for me to create worlds for people to enjoy again. The piece of me I thought died because of my injury ignited. It was clear that I must do this story justice. I wanted to create books that helped readers in the same way I would spend hours in the theater making the stage and cues perfect, so the audience only saw the phenomenal actors performing at their best. I wanted to stand behind my books like every one of the performers I gave my time to, whether they knew me or not. There was nothing to lose, and all of my passion to gain.
In 2021, I became serious about writing all of The Ruby Collection no matter how long it took. The only problem was that everything I wrote felt flat. The impact of my words wasn't as profound as the story I felt. I needed to find a way to make my readers feel like they were breathing with each character. I wanted your experience to be as vivid as a live theater performance.
One day, I was intensely inspired by one of my character's journey as I was writing from their point of view. To not spoil anything, I will say that their view was intrinsically biased for reasons outside of their control. After rereading the scene, I felt truly empathetic for this character. Their bias made them more real than words on a page, and their struggles felt profound because of it. That was when I knew all my characters needed fully biased opinions and mannerisms so that you, my friend, could experience my world as intended.
From here, I hope you accompany me on this exciting journey we're living.
Dare to Read Through Another's Eyes
I’m just a storyteller, standing in front of passionate readers asking them to truly read and feel through another’s eyes.
But for real.
Let's start with my literal eyes, shall we?
When I was 15, I failed the reading portion of my state’s standardized test to graduate high school. That’s right, I couldn’t read through most of primary school, but that didn’t stop me from having the second highest GPA in my grade. My teachers and parents were flummoxed. In the spirit of everyone wanting me to graduate from high school, they had me tested for dyslexia. Well, we found out something unexpected.
I was born with two different eye conditions. The first made my pupils a different size from each other as well as both pupils being larger than average. The second, which may or may not be connected to the first, made it so my eyes didn’t focus together. Because of the focusing issue, everything in my life looked burry, double, or not there. Also, my depth perception of things within arm-distance or moving towards me was nearly nonexistent.
Luckily, there was a solution to these problems. I went to eye physical therapy for nearly a year. In that time, I was able to train my eye muscles to work together. This resulted in me being able to see clearly up close and learning to read properly. I ended up passing the makeup exam for my state. Everyone in my life was so excited I could see and read that we all forgot about me getting an additional learning disability diagnosis for dyslexia.
Let’s back up to a time before my eyes could see because it was an important developmental time of my life. With my eyesight, it was like living in a world that never stopped moving. You know the games we played as children where we blindfolded ourselves, spun in circles, unblindfolded, and then had to walk towards a goal without falling over? Well, that visual of the world tilting was the lens I saw everything around me all the time. You can see why I couldn’t rely on my sight.
But I was a kid and thought everyone was this way, so I adapted as all humans do. Hearing was my only sense that never let me down, so it became my primary way of learning. If someone told me something, I remembered it.
Beyond hearing, my abilities to feel and know where things and I stood in space were elevated as well. If I walked somewhere new, I could tell you how many steps it took. I was far from blind, but my inability to see clearly made my other senses heighten almost as if I were.
Listening, feeling, and repeating were my whole world. I think that’s why, from a young age, I started to literally dream as if I were different people. In my dreams, I was never the same person or even people I’d met. It was as if my subconscious started to process the world through other peoples’ eyes because I could only see by listening to them.
Dreaming as another person is liberating. I would see what they saw and feel what they felt. Then, I would wake up as myself. It left me with an unbiased view of other people’s beliefs and sense of self. Because seeing the good and bad in others gave me a choice to become whom I wanted to be.
Of course, the older I got, the more people I met. In Washington, I attended three primary schools. Each was full of new voices, feelings, and opinions. While my mother studied music, I went to fourth grade in Texas. The people whose eyes I borrowed there were even more different and fascinating. The different cultures within the USA initiated my love for diversity.
At twelve, I raised money and traveled to the UK with the People-to-People Student Ambassador program. I learned about history, cultures, and how to enrich a community by volunteering. The countries I visited were full of wonderful people with even more perspectives on life. To me, each one of them was a possibility to learn and grow.
In high school, after raising money for over a year, I was able to sing in The Sound of America Honor Band and Choir. This was my first experience with not only six new European countries but also with a whole new economic class of people. Most of my peers came from elite families. We were so similar and yet different. I loved each person for both. We learned and created beautiful music together, united by our willingness to work as a team.
All these things happened to me before eye therapy and gaining the ability to see clearly and read. Because I was forced to learn from others and even my dreams were from others’ perspectives, I thrived on diversity and experiences.
When we look through each other’s eyes, our bias and ignorance fade away. This leaves us with the space to choose who we want to be, and what it takes to get there.
When you read through my fictional characters’ eyes, with their biased opinions, I hope you can find glimpses of the person you are ready to become. Please, learn from their mistakes and challenges. Be the best version of yourself. Because when you can better yourself, you give others permission to do the same.
So, why do I ask you to read through another’s eyes?
My hope is for you to plant seeds in yourself and let presents and your presence grow.
