The Sunshine Blogger Award

Let’s raise each other up and share a little more.

The Sunshine Blogger Award Rules:

• Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.

• Thank the person who nominated you.

• Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.

• Answer your nominator’s questions.

• Nominate up to 11 bloggers.

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I am honoured.

Thank you to the enigmatic and ever-thought-provoking

Cassian Delmare

for nominating me alongside such incredible talent. Cassian’s writing doesn’t just speak — it stirs. Each piece I’ve read has pulled something tender from me, leaving behind the kind of ache that lingers long after the words end. I’m deeply grateful to Cassian for this nomination, and also for creating a body of work that invites us to, consider, unravel, and feel deeply. You can find their reading here — I recommend bringing a cup of something warm, and the part of yourself you usually hide.

This nomination offers a chance to open the door a little wider and let you glimpse behind the curtain — to get to know me in all my strange, soft, and shadowy forms. And now, it’s my turn to pass the flame forward. I’ve created a new set of questions for the my nominees — ones that I hope will challenge you, enchant you, and crack you open a little too. There is no obligation to take part, but I do encourage you to do so. To all other readers, please take some time to explore these nominees — they are all treasures worthy of adventure and exploration.

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Cassian’s Interrogation

1. What’s something you do alone that you’d never admit to your therapist?
(You’re admitting it now. Congratulations.)
I replay conversations like looping film reels. Words I should have said, silences I wish I’d kept.
Sometimes I respond with grace. Sometimes I burn the whole scene down with a single sentence.
Old lovers. Former friends. The woman who interrupted me mid-sentence in a staff meeting six years ago.
I obsess over the what-ifs until the versions blur. A parallel life lived in perfect comebacks.

2. If your heartbreak had a favorite song, what would it be, and what would it wear to dinner?
The song would be "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette. It’s raw, blistering, bitter, sexy in its rage—and it bleeds.
She wears smudged mascara, a black camisole, a plaid shirt—cuffs chewed, wide-leg jeans—frayed at the bottom, and converse just a little too big. All to hide her slight figure. She’s sixteen. She’s drunk. She’s crying in the toilets of a pub after being dumped on her birthday. And the pain in her chest is shredding her apart.

3. What’s the most irrational grudge you still hold, and how would you passive-aggressively get back at that person in a dream?
I don’t really hold grudges. But if I did... it would be for the boss who fired me unfairly and sent my life into a spiral of illness, chaos, and survival.
In my dream, I’m calm. Collected. Glowing with the kind of quiet power they never believed I had.
I’m offered another, better job. They ask me to stay. I smile and say, “Absolutely not.”

4. Have you ever written about someone just so they’d read it and ache a little? (Did it work?)
Yes. And yes, it worked.
He came crawling back, lit with longing, dripping regret.
But I had outgrown the shape he thought he left me in.
This time, I walked away.

5. What’s a belief you no longer hold but still secretly wish were true?
That people who love you will just know. That they’ll feel your shift in tone, see your tired eyes, and come closer without needing to be asked. That you won’t have to spell out your needs in full sentences. I know now that love is not always intuitive.
But God, I still ache for that kind of gentle telepathy.

6. If your inner child and your inner villain sat down for coffee, who would cry first?
My inner child, absolutely. She cries easily, openly. She doesn’t hide her softness.
But then she wipes her cheeks with fierce little hands and stares the villain down like she’s made of lightning.
She knows what’s fair. She knows what she deserves.
And she doesn't back down—not even when she's shaking.

7. What’s something you love that completely ruins your image? (Bonus points if it sparkles.)
Nothing really ruins it—my contradictions are part of the charm. But I’ll admit: I’m messy. Scatterbrained. My inbox thrives while my houseplants die. I mix up my words when I talk and forget the ends of my sentences.
Which is funny, considering how deliberate my writing sounds.
But the page is where my mind finally slows down enough to listen.

8. Tell me your weirdest recurring dream like it's a screenplay pitch. (And yes, I want the title too.)
Title: Tsunami Season
Genre: Surreal Apocalyptic Drama
Pitch:
A woman stands alone on a cliff’s edge, watching a great wave gather and rise.
She does not run. She simply watches as it devours the world.
Each time the dream returns, she stands taller.
Until one night—she walks into the ocean.
Fade to black.

9. If your soul had a texture, what would it feel like to the touch?
Scorched bark. Rough, splintered, burned in places.
But beneath the surface—sap runs. Ancient, alive, and sweet.
The kind of soul that has withstood fire and still pulses with stories.

10. What’s one question you’re afraid someone will ask you, and why is it still haunting your drafts folder?
“Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?”
Out loud. Unprepared.
My brain races too fast, my words tangle in my mouth, and I forget everything that once made sense.
It’s why I write—because my truth arrives slower than my tongue.

11. What’s your most delusional main character moment, and did anyone else survive it? (Bonus: Where you wearing something dramatic? Be honest.)
When I walk through the park, headphones in, and suddenly everything matters. The ants. The sun slicing through branches. The shadows shifting on bark.
No one else sees it.
But I do.
Or when I’m at the easel, conjuring meaning out of brushstrokes—no audience, just the wild act of becoming.
The world fades.
I survive. That’s enough.

12. What’s something absurdly attractive you do on purpose and pretend is accidental? (Asking for science. And maybe someone watching.)
I tie up my hair slowly, exposing the line of my neck.
Sometimes I look someone dead in the eyes while I do it.
I pretend I’m not aware of the effect.
But of course I am.

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Nominations:

(In no particular order)

1. Persephone

2. Solena

3. Chloe Calvert

4. Elise Bonn

5. Margaret Allis

6. The Vampire Dorian Moreau

7. Gonzo Girl

8. Casey Jo Tabor

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Q&A

1. What’s one truth you’re constantly trying to unlearn, but it keeps clinging to your bones?

2. If you had to speak only in metaphor for a week, what would your current emotional state be?

3. Which emotion do you find easiest to write about — and which one do you tend to avoid entirely?

4. What would someone find if they walked into the museum of your mind? Describe three exhibits.

5. What do you romanticise that you probably shouldn’t — and why can’t you stop?

6. What part of your creative process feels most like a ritual? What part feels most like war?

7. If your writing had a forbidden section — a room readers weren’t meant to enter — what would be inside?

8. What’s a thought you’ve never dared to write down, even in your private notes? (Be brave!)

9. Describe a memory that haunts you gently — not because it was painful, but because it was almost perfect.

10. If a stranger stumbled across your writing 100 years from now, what do you hope they’ll feel first?

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Thanks again to Cassian for the nomination. To those I have nominated, I hope you take part and I look forward to reading your answers.

To those of you reading, thank you too and please set aside a little time to explore each of my nominations, go show them some love! They are beyond deserving.

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