It started with a bang from Chekhov’s gun. I’d always been a writer at heart, starting as young as fourteen with my very own typewriter my grandfather gave me to write my stories. In the many years after that, I wrote poetry, fiction, screenplays, articles, and blogs voraciously. But the real movement toward a career in publishing didn’t begin until 2017.
I’d just come out of one of the darkest periods of my life, forcing me to take a long, hard look at myself. After some deep soul searching, I acknowledged I hadn’t really lived up to who I thought I would grow up to be. I hadn’t written anything in a while, and I’d also lost my love for reading.
That’s when I made the decision to focus on pursuing my lifelong dreams of becoming a writer. Little did I know, that decision would push me toward editing as a new career. Once I learned the fundamentals, editing came easy to me, and I absolutely fell in love with it. But with all the ups and downs of the economy after the pandemic, I took a step away from editing for a while to find my bearings.
In the middle of that period, something terrible happened. Both my parents—who I’d been taking care of for a while—died from complications of liver disease and liver cancer. Once again, I was faced with a pivotal moment we see so often in movies and read in our favorite stories.
That’s when I decided to jump back into my business with a new purpose to focus on the things I loved: true crime, mysteries, and thrillers. Together, with my long-time writing and editing partner, we launched Write the Crime to start focusing on what we loved.
Tina Morlock