When I was 8, I wrote my first book — 87 pages, 1 paragraph. I handed it to my mother, hoping she’d read it. She didn’t even open it. She just said, “Nobody is ever going to read what you write.” I threw the book away. I didn’t throw away the writing. My mother struggled with addiction, and I was too young to understand that her words weren’t really about me. But they stuck. For decades, I wrote in secret — 20 novels that lived in drawers and folders because I was afraid she might be right. When I turned 60, I realized I had to know.