Ever since I can remember, I've always been someone who stood out in a crowd. In school, having fantasy novels permanently attached to the end of your nose will go a long way in making you feel like a social outcast, but it was more than that. I don't like to follow. I like to innovate, analyze, learn, lead and above all-create. In her masterpiece of dystopian storytelling, Divergent, author Veronica Roth hit home for me when she described disrupter Tris Prior as being divergent. The Divergents of Roth's world are not better, or more moral, more human or humane-they're just different. A true mix of stereotypes that no one can categorize. That's me. Tris Prior is an embodiment of everything the word disrupter means; a universe of innovation, enterprise, and a thirst to understand the world around us that doesn't stop at authoritarian barriers without at least asking the immortal question, Why? If there is one thing I have learned over two and a half decades of reading and writing teen fantasy, it is that the best authors imbue into their characters; their heroes and heroines, all the traits that readers wish to see in themselves. That's why we read fantasy-it's like a mirror in reverse: not what we are but what we wish to see reflected in ourselves. I decided to become a teen fantasy author when I was very young. I am a strong believer in paying it forward-my first real live role model (the ones on paper don't count in this context) was Lady Melissa Sola. She was the first to nurture that divergent attitude, and taught me to love myself even as she encouraged my fumbling attempts to emulate the heroic deeds I so loved to read. If there is one piece of advice I can offer to anyone, it would be-whatever you do; whoever you are, be different. Be YOU. Be great. Be Divergent.
