Storytime!

Hi, I’m Liyah!

For a high school English class, I remember having to write an essay explaining who I was using a metaphor. I wrote that I was a notebook. My mom exposed me to the wonders of literature at a young age; I vaguely remember nights of reading stories with colorful pages and simple plots, focused on the different sounds of letters in rhymes. And I recall enjoying the challenge of pronouncing and comprehending each phrase. Soon, the words got more complex, the font got smaller, the pages increased, and suddenly, I was writing my own stories in grade school.

In some shape or form, I always wanted to share the love of storytelling — how therapeutic it was to get wrapped up in another world, and how it can connect, inspire, and inform people. I saw myself filling all these different roles with a storytelling focus — an award-winning novelist with a good movie or TV series adaptation, a scriptwriter, or screenwriter. A pop culture journalist or blogger — but I didn’t know where to begin.

I went to college to pursue creative writing without a clear goal. I just wanted to be happy and tell stories. Over four years of education, I learned how powerful art, in all its forms, can be as an energy source to move people to take action in social justice, and how it is a vital part of the human experience. But it wasn’t until my Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Arts that I truly got the spark to become an editor.

 To advance my WIP novel, I hired a developmental editor, and I admired their investment in my work and wished to give someone else this feeling.

In a Women’s Literature class, I was introduced to Toni Morrison’s works and her awe-inspiring story of becoming the gateway to several famous Black writers in the publishing field.

In a Literary and Arts Editorial Board class, I served as a Record Keeper editor for UW Bothell’s 2024 edition of Clamor for a semester, during which I experienced a range of art and learned what goes into creating a journal. By the end, I wanted to help others the way my editor helped me and to continue the work I did for Clamor.

 Inspired, I found the Specialization in Developmental Editing course at UW, moved by a desire to nurture emerging voices and enhance storytelling for diverse audiences as a nerdy woman of color. From there, I connected with like-minded people, and I was able to create JSM Rebirth Editing!