Danae Bradley

My name is Danae Bradley. I have been writing for twenty-two years. My earliest memory with writing was when I was around four or five, when I would scribble on pieces of paper on the floor of my mom’s home office. I mostly wrote at home, until I learned how to be ungovernable in the fourth grade.

I don’t remember how, but I managed to receive a notebook with swirls of black, pink, and orange. The cover is a fuzzy, disjointed memory, but I do remember the contents.

I had created a story that I wrote feverishly for months. At the time, it was my magnum opus. It was a rip-off of star wars, the cast replaced with dogs. The Empire was full of cats.

When I would finish my school work I would pull out my notebook to write. That’s also the time when my teacher would see me writing and take it away. This is where I learned pettiness. The moment that notebook was ripped from my hands, and the pencil scraped against the paper. I was in tears. I didn’t understand why she was punishing me for finishing my work and writing to fill time.

Thanks to this teacher, I was taught two powerful weapons; pettiness and spite.

I started to write on assignments, in the margins of school notebooks and agendas. Our backpacks weren’t allowed inside the classroom, so I had to learn how to smuggle pens in. When all writing surfaces were removed, I would start writing on my arms. If the teacher wanted me to stop writing, she would have to rip them off. My fourth grade teacher was the only one to rip notebooks out of my hands, literally. Between the teacher and I, we were both equally sick of each other.

Fast forward to middle school. I got some cool little nicknames like Michael Meyers, Quasimoto, hunchback, and some racially insensitive terms. I got threatened to have my eye gouged out by a boy with a pencil in science class. That fear was just what I needed for a scene in one of my stories. I helped a librarian with end-of-year book sorting for two years and she used a technicality to make me her student of the year (Another student had to catch me walking around because no one told me I was student of the year). A math teacher spotted one of my writings stuck under my desk one day and complimented me on it. I still remember him.

In high school, I was part of the creative writing class for two years. It was a program designed for kids who actually got good grades, but the teacher saw my talent and pulled strings to get me in there. I didn’t do well academically, but it felt nice to be recognized like that. Other students thought I was a really good writer, but I didn’t really see it. I didn’t finish college; I couldn’t wrap my head around how to learn in that environment.

The tradition of writing between assignments continues even to this day. I often find myself writing during breaks or at home. I write for a few hours a day, or I stare at my screen with writer’s block.

But that’s me. I don’t remember a time before writing. It’s always been around. I have my first book, Bjornborn, coming out either by the end of the year or early 2026. So until then, I’ll write about things that interest me, things I’ve found during research, ideas, concepts, anything.

I’ve had it all stuck in my head for this long, I might as well do something with it.

Thank you,

Danae Bradley, Author (In Theory)