The Unofficial Bio

A Hustler

I grew up in San Bernardino, in California’s Inland Empire. It’s the second poorest city in the country after Detroit (but I know you’ve never heard of it.) People from the 909 wear that like a badge of honor. I know what it’s like to grow up around poverty, gang violence, and to spend a lifetime watching the system failing people you love.

I also know what it feels like when 'making it work' is your only option, because you cannot survive if you stay where you’re at.

A Builder

I started A Practical Wedding on my kitchen table in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis, quit my day job when I was supporting both myself and my husband, and grew it to the largest independently held wedding publication in the English language. The company has gone on to make millions of dollars in revenue, while remaining entirely self-funded. I also have written two best-selling wedding books that have sold well over 150,000 copies.

Then in 2023, after fifteen years of being a very public essayist, I discovered that fiction allowed me to me profoundly emotionally honest on the page. (Instead of being "too personal", suddenly your prose is "keenly observed.") After six months of working on a practice novel, in 2024 I drafted a book in seven days. Five months later I'd signed with a fiction agent. (When I'm in, I'm all in.)

A Permission Slip Giver

A shortlist of things I have done that I had no formal qualifications to do: Written two best-selling wedding books, penned viral articles for Buzzfeed that garnered well over a million views, had my creative direction featured in AdWeek, collaborated on a plus-size wedding dress line that was featured in Vogue Business, pitched two reality TV shows, been quoted in nearly every major US publication, been a keynote speaker on many stages, pivoted a business over and over, and oh right, been the Editor-in-Chief of a major publication (while being dyslexic). And yup, written novels.

I am not interested in what the world says we're qualified to do. I’m here to remind you that you have permission to do the things you need to do and create what you’ve been wanting to create.

A Feet First Jumper

What is my formal training in? Experimental Theatre. Was that a practical major for someone who knew they had to earn a living the second they graduated? No. Did I do it anyway? Yup. My career has been a series of plunges into the deep end and learning to swim after.

But that doesn’t mean it’s ever been easy. When I actually learned to swim, I was so paralyzed with anxiety that it took weeks of standing on the end of the diving board before I jumped again. Once I did though, I never looked back.