Hello friend.

I'm not sure how you ended up here on my author’s bio page and I’m not sure how I ended up writing one. Honestly.

I began my life as a southern country girl in the backwoods of rural Arkansas farmland (my name is Bowe – named after bow hunting). I didn’t grow up writing and I’m not sure what set me off reading. My parents didn’t read for pleasure and Lord knows school didn’t assign very many interesting books to delve into. I was surrounded by the country. Trees. A lot of flat land. Chores. Hot arid summers. Cicadas, ticks, noisy tree frogs. More chores. Lots of animals. That might sound picturesque for some, but to me, I was trapped.

Reading was my escape. Somehow I found it. Or it found me. And the 1990s/early 2000s Walmart tiny book section with its scant fantasy selection was my treasure trove.

We didn’t have money for vacations and anything we did have, my incredible mom poured into my traveling soccer endeavors. Those books let me dream of becoming more – being more. Each main character always started off unassuming and somehow, against all odds, made this huge difference in their world. I wanted to do that. I wanted to break out of the South and go do something worth doing. Something big that made a meaningful impact. Something that screamed, “BOWE WAS HERE!”

So… I did what any non-affluent, but generally smart kid can do - and joined the military. I went to the United States Naval Academy, sold on dreams of becoming the best of the best. A Marine. (Stay with me – we veer off the path to authorship here for a bit, but didn’t I warn you about that in the beginning?)

Then I met a few Marines and realized I had actually very little in common with them. Remember, I was from the middle of nowhere Arkansas (a land-locked state), and the maximum exposure I had to the military was through the TV show, Jag, where one of the main characters was a badass female Marine played by Catherine Bell. Jag, by the way, is a show about military lawyers! Boy, did I know nothing about being in the military.

And then I met Navy pilots. Two heartbeats later, I was sold. Where do I sign? Chill but focused. Live and die by the motto “work hard, play hard,” these people were my people – or at least the closest I was going to find in the military. And I did that for as long as it made me happy/didn’t die, and I knew that had an expiration date. I flew helicopters (MH-60S) in the desert, across the Atlantic Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Scottish Hebrides, and numerous places in the states. As any helo pilot will tell you, it’s crazy fun and while yes, helos beat the air into submission and want to fall out of the sky, I did have too many close calls for me to feel like this was the way I wanted my story to end. I still wanted to do more and make my mark some other way.

So, I went off the golden aviator path of flying and went to teach at Texas A&M University’s NROTC program in 2017 while earning my graduate degree in Sustainable International Development and Global Health. I loved that degree program. So much hope, inspiration, and ingenuity in each professor’s curriculum. That’s where I was exposed to ethnographies! And if that’s not my next professional goal, I don’t know what is. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Catherine Boo was just life-changing (I just realized my life has been changed by two women named Catherine).

Finally, in January 2020, I began my last tour with the Navy on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. We all know what epidemic hit early 2020, making that carrier deployment the longest on record without touching land. THAT’S where Jasper and Jordyn’s story began. Technically, the idea was born in Texas, but I began actually writing it onboard that ridiculously long and challenging deployment.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew that I wanted to write. It was time, at 32 years old, to try and tell a story. I told stories ALL the time in my head. I mean, it’s a constant narrative going on up here. I might actually be crazy. But this story was different. I couldn’t stop thinking about the potential of this new world I was creating in my head. These characters. This ridiculous concept of “The Great Split” thundering across all of the universe and the repercussions that ensued.

I just didn’t know how to begin. Cue verbal/keyboard vomit.

Then the deployment ended, and I did another thing I had always wanted to do – I had a baby! This slowed down the whole writing thing, but I guess some would say it was worth it. We moved from Virginia to Washington, and I left the active-duty Navy and began a new civilian life. 2023 came around and I could just see Jasper there in the room with me, following me around, bored and dusty like the old, neglected story he had become, asking me why he was stuck in his apartment – never moving forward. Wasn’t his world ending? That’s kind of a big deal for me to just ignore. And rude.

It was time to get serious again.

Cue Janet. Through a lucky find of an author friend, I found an editor/writing coach who took on my babbling and with some quick directional inputs – turned it into the story that I hope you love. After she pointed me in the right direction, the story began pouring out. And my heart literally sang. I finally - finally - found something that made me truly happy like I’d never felt before – and that was just so weird. I was 35 years old! I’d done a lot in my time thus far – seen a lot of the world. Done some crazy dangerous things. Experienced LIFE. And sitting in a coffee shop across from my toddler’s daycare, typing out Jasper and Jordyn’s adventures had me bouncing in my seat grinning from ear to ear. I just wanted to tell everyone else going about their own scripted lives, sipping their pumpkin spice lattes, what sort of adventure my characters were getting up to so they could get just as excited as I was – but of course, that would be nuts. So, I just sat on my hands.

If you’re still with me, wow. Way to go, new friend. But I do want to say one thing since it’s just you and me – somehow here in a random part of the internet. Don’t stop trying to find the thing that makes you happy. I’m not guaranteed success at this, and I have SO much self-doubt, it can be quite debilitating. I am the walking-talking poster child for imposter syndrome. HOWEVER, I just go back to that feeling of pure joy when I’m creating. When I’m writing and telling the story. When my heart sings. I hope you find what makes yours sing too.

Anyway, I also love to do any and every kind of art. Painting, murals, woodburning, sculpting, building, crafting, you name it. So, of course, I took a shot at creating my own children’s book, “Brave Enough,” and it was a TASK! Mad respect for children’s book illustrators. Check it out if you have a timid child in your life that is actually quite brave when facing new challenges (coming Summer of 2025!).

This new world of authorship that I’m just now delving into – it’s my world. I can tell. I’m an introvert, so I’ll be sitting here shyly participating from my home in the hills of Washington - sipping my cup of coffee, working a job, raising two wild children, and making ends meet. But I’m going to keep creating. And I’m going to keep writing. And to my old English teachers out there, I’m going to keep starting my sentences with “and,” because now that I’m an “author,” I get to do what I want.

With love,

Bowe