When I was in the seventh grade, I was so painfully shy that if I walked down a hallway and saw my best friend walking in my direction but we hadn't planned to meet up, I would duck into the library to hide.

I never had to hide from books.

Books let me rent magical kingdoms, stroll into town as a hired gunslinger, or cut a swath through a forest on an alien planet. Books let me understand other people at a time that I didn't even understand myself. Eventually I stopped being shy, but I never stopped being obsessed with stories.

As a theatre teacher, I work with every flavor of trauma that the system can throw my way, but I've always loved getting to know the people underneath the scars. That's what I write. Flawed people inside of broken systems. Some of them are trying—some have given up—but all of them deserve to be understood. Even villains have their baggage.

Favorite authors? Too many to name. I love Brandon Sanderson, Leigh Bardugo, Robert Jackson Bennett, Naomi Novik. I'm also grateful to some of my early influences: Timothy Zahn, Louis L'Amour, Alexandre Dumas—and the Howard Pease novel Thunderbolt House that made young Dave think collecting books was the coolest hobby on Earth.