Humble Beginnings
A bookend of the millennial generation, Hannah was born in the chilly winter of the late nineties. She grew up in a working-class, deeply religious, and severely dysfunctional family. Eventually, she and her family settled in a small Southwest Michigan town, where she lived until finishing high school.
EARLY Creative Endeavors
Growing up in chaos, Hannah was a very reserved child and often turned to fictional worlds and history to escape from reality and for comfort. At that time, she stuck her nose in books and wouldn't look up until the next bell rang. Having learned how to read by the age of two, Hannah gained a sense of wonder of what fiction was and what it could be to a small-town kid, exposed to different perspectives and lives of the characters she called her friends.
In 2003, her second-grade teacher wrote on her final report card that Hannah "held promising writing skill" and that she couldn't wait to "read what [Hannah's] wild imagination comes up with." While it took a bit for this to manifest, Hannah began posting short stories to book review comments and scribbling down poems into random notebooks during class. Her teachers took notice, encouraging her to submit her essays and poetry to Creative Communications, a nationwide publication for young writers. She was published four times between 2009 and 2014.
Hannah also became a prolific FanFiction writer in her spare time. What started as simple stories eventually bloomed into being a recognized name in fandom communities. Her six-year career as a FanFiction writer is what convinced her to pursue writing in academia and as a career.
EDUCATION
Han has always been involved with writing organizations. She was part of the writing and editorial team for the middle school student newspaper and covered pop culture, think pieces, and faculty interviews.
She went on to be a founding member of the Creative Writing Club in high school and served as the event planner. She graduated from high school with nearly perfect attendance, Presidential Honors, and a strong connection with the educators who had pushed her to improve her writing skills beyond what she thought was capable.
While enrolled at Cornerstone as a Humanities student, Hannah was published in the student-led English Society's Makeshift Review. She later on joined the publication as co-editor and the social media manager.
She won the Dorothy Sayers Promising Young Writer's Scholarship in 2017 and fulfilled her internship requirement as a teaching assistant to her trusted professor, friend, and mentor, Cynthia Beach, in an Intro to Creative Writing course. Her other extracurriculars included photojournalism, philosophy, language, and theology, as well as attending and volunteering at writing conferences.
In May 2018, Hannah walked at her college graduation – the first and only one of her family to do so – to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing and English Literature.
Today
Since 2022, Hannah has also worked as a full-time Medical Content Writer and Content Coordinator for Doctor Genius, a SaaS digital marketing company out of Irvine, California. In this role, she has honed her research, copywriting, and marketing skills, learning how to translate complex medical jargon to accessible information to help DG's clients obtain and retain prospective patients. She has written for medical specialties ranging from general dentists and dental specialists to psychiatrists and chiropractors.
In her spare time, Hannah spends time in her garden, reading, and going to the gym. While her novel writing dream has taken a backseat in the pursuit of a professional writing career, she has continued to write content on her Medium page. She is also the proud cat parent to a sassy senior calico named Miki.