Nowadays, if the biggest and most ridiculous thing about your local representative is that they write and publish romance novels, that seems pretty sane compared to other local officials’ hobbies and delusions.

Growing up, I loved Barbie. Yes, her fashion was on point, but I don’t think that’s what I loved about her. Yes, I could also use my imagination to make up storylines. That was also cool, but I think it was the careers that made me appreciate Barbie. She worked hard (but not harder than my mother). Barbie had dozens of careers.

She is the definition of you can be whatever you want. My mother also told me that I could be whatever I wanted, and she never told me that I couldn’t be all of those things at once. I’ve been a secretary, flight attendant, IT Business Analyst, freelance journalist, Communications Specialist, mayor, and a romance author.

Romance author, you say? I’m a sucker for romance. I love building worlds and stories, and sometimes I turn my dreams into storylines. If I ever stop dreaming at night, I may just run out of ideas, and that scares me from time to time.

As a kid, my mom dropped my brothers and me off at the Braddock Carnegie Library for hours. I don’t remember the first book I read, but I’ll never forget how Sharon Flake’s “The Skin I’m In” made me feel seen and heard. I think that also was around the time that I got into fanfiction. At one point, I was running my own MSN B2K fanfiction group. Once I discovered that I too could weave words to build worlds, it was a wrap.

At one point, I was handwriting novels chapter by chapter and handing them over to my classmates to read. I still have original stories that are probably terrible in a box in my closet. When the world is wobbly and dysfunctional, I can create my own, and that’s where my passion came from. I would finish my classwork and homework in class to write fiction. One teacher was so irritated that he confiscated my notebook. Every day, I’d come to class with a new chapter for my classmates to trade as if they were Pokémon cards.

Finding out that Stacey Abrams also writes romance novels was not on my Bingo List. My stories nowadays are heartwarming and more like dramas than they are dark urban dramas that I used to write. Inspiration comes from songs, dreams, and random ideas.

My latest book, The Trouble with Love, follows a girl who makes a bet with her father (who owns a record label) that she can create an album in thirty days. She goes on an adventure to follow through with her journey and finds love along the way. The problem with said love is that it’s with her producer, Trouble. She swears that he wouldn’t live up to his name.

Another one that I’m working on is about an arts and culture journalist who writes poetry on the side and falls for a guy who is not only a sportscaster, but he finds his way to her heart by reading her own books.

Starting out, I was under a terrible publishing contract some years ago, where they took fifty percent of everything. That’s why I went independent and why I teach others how to publish.

Creating love stories helps balance the heartbreak poetry that I write (I tried love poetry and hated it).

I’m now working on book number eleven (4 poetry and 6 fiction books), and I’ve officially published 9 books on behalf of others. The Sequel to Trouble with Love is a fun write. I’m reworking Romeo’s Juliet as that was my first series, and I’ll never be satisfied one hundred percent with a story, as I’m always competing with myself for better.  I also hate reading my stories after they’re published because once it’s finished, it’s out into the world and I always want to move on to the next story.

My debut romance novel, Stripped, may never get a sequel as I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top that one. I wrote most of it out of order, but it was my favorite story to map. As I get older, I get less embarrassed by things. Writing is a vulnerable sport, and as I get more in tune with my feelings, I realize that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay, because not everyone likes tea, kind of how I don’t like most coffee because it’s bitter. Check out my entire collection of books I’ve published for myself and others, and maybe you’ll find something that you like.

And as far as where the pen names come from? Devin is a play on my middle name if someone were to mumble it.