The old saying, “Life is Stranger than Fiction”, epitomizes my journey this past year. Some days I’m still not sure any of this is real, or if I’m going to sadly wake up from this incredible dream. One year ago today, I discovered GCLS and soon after was accepted into the GCLS Writing Academy 2021. I was not a published author, nor did anybody in the Sapphic writing community know my name. My wife and I lived a quiet existence in the middle of a cornfield where I wrote my sto

by Tagan Shepard I decided to enroll in GCLS Writing Academy because I knew I had more to learn. I published my first novel, Visiting Hours, with Bella Books in 2017. It was good and my editor made it even better. Each of the four books I’ve published since have been better than the last. I learned with each one, but we always have more to learn, whether we’ve never written a word or published a hundred books. Just as Writing Academy was starting, I began editing my sixth boo