Asking for What We Want in Our Lives ““ And What We Deserve in Literature

Kathrin Hutson

We are not defined by our mistakes, and we deserve to reach beyond our dreams until they become reality.

This is a pervading theme in everything I write, morphed into various forms through story and character but no less poignant from book to book. It’s an incredibly important message I strive to offer my readers in whatever different flavor each story brings, because it’s a message I have lived through personally. And I know I’m not the only one.

As a wife, a mother, and a queer female author navigating the literary world and supporting my family solely by writing fiction, I’ve struggled for some time to find the balance between meeting needs and fulfilling wishes. For years, I operated under the belief that what I needed, what I wanted, and what I deserved were three very different things within my personal life. Trying to visualize and actualize all three was a feat tossed even farther to the winds when I struggled through an active heroin addiction in my late teens and early twenties.