As I write my first book, I keep thinking about the people who will one day hold it in their hands. Not in a broad, abstract way — but in a deeply personal one. I think about the readers who will find themselves in my stories, the ones who will feel seen in ways they didn’t expect, the ones who will recognize pieces of their own lives tucked between the lines.

Those are the people I write for.

I write for the ones who have carried their pain quietly, who learned to survive without applause or acknowledgment. The ones who have been strong for so long that they’ve forgotten what it feels like to be held. The ones who have lived through things they don’t always talk about, things that shaped them in ways the world can’t see.

I write for the ones who have felt invisible in rooms where they should have been understood.
For the ones who have loved deeply and lost deeply.
For the ones who have rebuilt themselves more times than they can count.

I write for the people who read to feel less alone.

I hope my stories reach the reader who is sitting in their car after a long day, trying to gather themselves before going inside. The reader who is healing from something they don’t have words for yet. The reader who is searching for a sign that they are not broken, not strange, not too much — just human.

I hope my words find the person who needs a reminder that survival is not the end of their story. That there is softness waiting for them. That there is joy still possible. That there is a future where they are allowed to take up space, to rest, to breathe, to become.

And I hope my writing reaches the reader who simply loves a good story — someone who wants to feel something real, something honest, something that lingers long after the last page.

These are the readers I hold in my heart as I write.
These are the people I imagine sitting with my book, nodding quietly, whispering yes… I know this feeling.
These are the souls I hope to touch.

If my stories can offer even one person a moment of recognition, a moment of comfort, a moment of truth — then I’ve done what I came here to do.

— Leigh C. Mitchell