Raised in the sweltering heat of Queensland, Australia, Sasha spends her days dreaming of snow-covered trees and cobblestone streets filled with languages she doesn’t understand.

The excitement of exploring unknown places has never lost its allure for Sasha, even after years of living out of a suitcase, and she seamlessly integrates threads of her personal experiences into the tapestry of her novels. ‘The road goes ever on’, they say, and for Sasha, that means feeling just as ‘at home’ under the sparkling lights of Kabukichō as she does in the dense forests surrounding a Bulgarian monastery.

When she’s not traveling, she’s writing, studying (creative writing, modern history and mythology through anthropology) or dreaming of meaningful tales to tell.

Her stories range from the fantastical and magical where mythology is rampant and souls are forever entwined, to gritty spy thrillers where danger lurks at every turn, and nothing is ever as it seems.

M/M stories generally fit into clearly defined moulds. There are the coming-of-age, discovery, and facing-the-odds stories (I love these) and then there are the kinky porn novels (no comment—we’ve all been there).

I aim to offer something different.

My characters are independent and capable, and when they come together, it is cataclysmic. Not because the plot dictates it, not because they’re the only gays in the village, and it certainly isn’t because a shy boy tripped and fell onto a Top. (See what I did there?)

But seriously, representation is important to me. LGBTQIA+ stories shouldn’t just be about accepting sexuality, getting down and dirty, finding love and carving out a place in society. While those stories are important (vital, even) they’re not the be-all to end-all of who we are, and it’s not the only way to define us.

I want to weave stories representative of all walks of life, and, most importantly, stories where the sexuality of a character is secondary to the plot, which is secondary to the theme and message. The relationship should be key, but the fact that they’re gay shouldn’t be the plot.

Love is love. And it’s time we started seeing that reflected in our literature.