Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Have you ever run into a teacher at the movie theater? It seems odd, surreal. You know perfectly well your teacher has an existence outside the classroom, but at the same time, it’s so far beyond your ken that experiencing it is almost unreal. Now imagine being the teacher. It’s like being an imaginary person, who has just accidentally walked into the room.

One of the strangest results of having your name on a book jacket is the proliferation of people who know one narrow aspect of your life, and are suddenly surprised to learn there’s more.

For example, last spring, I dressed up as an evil mushroom for a day while attending Anime Boston with my writing group. The day before that, I was Zexion; I still have a short video of myself and my friends, dressed in those costumes, performing the kitty-cat dance in the Prudential lobby. The day before that, I was some character whose name I can’t pronounce with pink hair. It had something to do with bread. I don’t really know, despite my friends’ attempts to prepare me. I hugged a lot of random strangers that day, because apparently when you’re dressed as a beloved character with pink hair, people like to hug you. Thankfully, I’m less Goth than my sometimes-reputation would predict, so I can be Zen about these things.

I was asked to write about “something people don't know about you,” and there it is in a nutshell: I get lumped in with dark fiction, but I have a great capacity for the absurd. I love to laugh.

When I was fourteen, I was one of those kids who wore all black because it matched everything. Seriously. We all say that, but for me it was true; my older sister made such fun of my color-coordination I was paranoid to even wear blue jeans with a colored top for a long time. We're all crazy in middle school, right? Well, I picked up a reputation as a Goth at that point, but it was never a very accurate image.

The truth is, I like to engage with life fully. Given an opportunity to do something I don’t often get a chance to do, I feel the need to try it, even if I suspect I’ll make a fool out of myself. I have swung on a flying trapeze, explored a glacier, and been hit in the face by a shark's tail while scuba diving. I like to throw myself fully into projects and adventures, which is probably how I managed to publish a book in the first place.

At the end of the day, I have this whole life, but what I’ve given to my readers is a name on a book jacket, a paragraph-long author biography, and a story to read that I hope will inspire or at least entertain. This is why I like to introduce myself to my readers, and say to them, “Hey, I’m a real person. I’m not some mythological writing creature. I’m just like you. I don’t have anything you don’t have. Anything I can do, you can do.”