Author Bio
With a love for reading and a long-standing passion for fantasy worlds, M. W. Upham lives in a small town in Michigan with her wife and her many cats. Like many young writers, M. W. Upham struggled to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. As a child, she always knew she wanted to put her stories into the world, but she wasn’t sure exactly how. She has always excelled at anything regarding creativity, but struggled to put her ideas into action due to her ADHD diagnosis at a young age.
Determined to become a multi-novel published author, M. W. Upham has overcome many struggles to earn her bachelor's degree in creative writing. During her time learning, she studied diligently in order to write a proper novel that would reflect her passionate heart and creative mind.
My Story
I have always struggled with my creative process in public spaces. When I was younger, it was easier because I could draw and play and express my ideas as any other child. But as I grew older, everyone else had moved on to things they wanted to be when they grew up. My best friend Caroline was looking into working at a government office. My friend Jake had flown off to work in a Disney college program. My younger sister became a nurse, and my partner had started working in computer science. I felt like the only person who didn’t have a clue where to start. Except I knew one thing, I wouldn’t be happy unless I had a way to share my fictional stories and characters with the world.
I graduated from Rockford Highschool and I had taken graphics classes at the Kent Intermediate School District. I did this with the hopes of becoming a movie maker. Unfortunately, at graduation I had started to realize that making movies was a bit of a long-shot dream. A dream which would be nearly impossible to achieve unless I wanted to uproot my entire life and move to Hollywood with the money I didn’t have. So I went back to the drawing board.
My second idea had been to start an online comic series. However, upon starting the first chapter I got no more than three pages in before I realized that even though I might like drawing, I don’t love it. And I definitely didn’t have the patience to sit down and dedicate hours to the craft. A webcomic just wasn’t a realistic storytelling method for my abilities.
I eventually lost hope of sharing my stories, and began going to Grand Rapids Community College. I looked into vet tech since I love animals, but it didn’t inspire me. I looked into architecture thinking it was at least a creative job, yet I found no interest there either. I looked into doing tech work like my partner, but I was bored to tears and depressed out of my mind. The creeping fear that my ideas would die with me growing every day. It wasn’t until I watched a movie titled “Whisper Of The Heart” that everything changed.
I am a big fan of Japanese Animation, cartoons, and 2d films. Whisper Of The Heart is a movie from a famous Japanese Animation movie studio titled “Studio Ghibli”. It is also famous for its other works such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Howl's Moving Castle. “Whisper Of The Heart” is about an average young girl who lives an average life, until one day she decides she wants to become a writer. She travels around her town looking for inspiration and doing her best to follow her dreams. After her manuscript was written, a second movie to the first was created entirely around the story she wrote. This movie is titled “The Cat Returns” and is one of my favorite movies from the studio.
After I saw that movie for the first time, I was left awestruck. Not by the movie itself, but by the idea it had given me. Why couldn’t I write a book? What was stopping me from opening up a google document, and writing to my heart's content? I might not be able to draw out a detailed comic page or draft a movie all on my own. Though I definitely knew how to write a sentence, and I always loved to read. Why had I never thought of this before?
With loads of excitement, I opened my old sketchbooks to dig out the characters I had been ready to retire along with my dreams. I opened my google drive, created a folder for the works I would write and began my first draft. However, that isn’t where my lessons would end. After my first attempt at publishing, I realized that while my excitement was through the roof, I still needed to edit and revise the works I released into the world.
I decided to put a brief pause on my writing journey, but things were different now. I had finally reached a point where I knew what I wanted my life to be, and I knew what I needed to do to get there. I enrolled in Southern New Hampshire University to gain my bachelors degree in creative writing. With my newfound education, I am determined to achieve my dream of releasing thought provoking, magical, and inspiring novels into the world.