Hi everyone :) happy to be here. ➡️ What is your name (preferred pronouns as well, if you don't mind) My name is Dejan (pronounced: Day-on) Perez and I use she/her pronouns, currently living in Washington state and am originally from Hawai’i Island AKA Big Island, Hawai’i. ➡️ Why did you decide to join The Unexpected Shape Café? I am in a strange point in life! I pursued an MA and have been on writing my thesis for about two years over the recommended time. I used my MA as the opportunity to do a portfolio in creative writing and recently decided to begin shifting my attention to creative nonfiction. I don’t have a bunch of writing friends, so having some company during the lonelier parts of being a student graduating outside of my own graduated cohort is appreciated :) I joined shortly after finishing “The Collected Schizophrenias” and would love to learn how to create a work I’m proud of. ➡️ What is your favorite book? Recent Reads that became Favorites: “Ask the Brindled” by No’u Revilla “Abandon Me” by Melissa Febos (and anything by Febos) “The Night Parade” by Jami Lin Nakamura For fun: Ali Hazelwood’s romances! Helps me heal from my academia pain Forever Favorites: “A Cup of Water Under My Bed” by Daisy Hernandez “Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls” by T Kira Madden “This is Paradise” by Kristiana Kahakauwila (especially “Wanle”) Not a book, but is a beautiful album of story is Rina Sawayama’s “Hold the Girl.” The whole album is actually the wish I have for my future writings. You can feel how writing that album transformed her, and what a justice to the world it was to share that art that came of her journey. ➡️ What are you interested in writing about? I don’t have a lot of work so far, still very early in developing my portfolio. The themes I usually gravitate towards as a reader are coming of age stories, the act of understanding the bringing of inner child to inner preteen to inner post-teen to inner early-twenties. I am interested in automythography, the act of using mythologies and mythological creatures, gods, and using it as a way to tell ones own story, like Lorde, like Kingston, like Nakamura. I’m all over the place. To be honest, I might be at the stage where I need encouragement to finish a page!

@Ainna Flaminia AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH all the people are so great and so amazing and I can’t believe I get to exist the same time as artists it’s such a privilege I swear

I’ve raised screen children help