The Many Rooms of My Mind — Amy Shannon

Before I could write, I spoke stories. I rewrote endings, added characters, reshaped the tales I loved into something new. My mother would listen patiently, smiling as I spun my versions aloud. She called me her little storyteller - and I believed her.As soon as I learned how to write, I filled pages with poems, thoughts, and stories. My notebooks became homes for the voices in my head - imagined lives, whispered truths, and quiet echoes that needed somewhere to live. I didn't know then that I was building rooms.I grew up, and the stories grew with me. Short stories became my rhythm, poetry my breath. And one day, a short story stretched its legs and became my first novel. I've written many since, each one a room I've opened, a voice I've honored.Now, I find myself drawn to stories that aren't imagined - the real ones, the quiet ones, the lives that history forgets. I want to give them space, to let them bloom beside the fiction, to let their whispers be heard.This collection gathers them all - the early sparks, the genre wanderings, the flash fiction, the truths and the dreams. These are the crowded corners of my thoughts, the many rooms of my mind. I invite you in.