Kayden Etter

Hi. I'm Kayden.

I'm a writer, professional overthinker, history nerd, gamer, coffee drinker, occasional chaos goblin, and Spider-Man enthusiast whose commitment to the bit probably passed “reasonable” several years ago.

Mostly, though, I write about becoming. Becoming who you are, someone you never expected to be, brave enough to leave things behind, visible after spending years trying very hard not to be.

Basically, I am fascinated by that weird stretch of life between who you were told to be and who you eventually realize you are. Sometimes I explore that through fiction.

My debut novel, Ink & Saltwater, puts a trans man aboard the RMS Titanic in 1912 because apparently having a lifelong Titanic obsession wasn't enough. I also needed to turn it into several years of research, emotional damage, and a book. The novel began with a question I couldn't leave alone: What might it have meant to be queer or transgender in 1912?

But history isn't the only place I go looking for stories.

I also write personal essays about identity, courage, relationships, joy, grief, change, and all the strange little moments that somehow alter the direction of a life. Sometimes they're serious and sometimes they're funny. Frequently they begin with me thinking, Huh. That's weird, and end several thousand words later with an existential crisis and a metaphor I have become emotionally attached to.

I like writing about people in the middle of things. People figuring themselves out. People who have screwed up. People starting over. People choosing themselves. People discovering that courage rarely feels particularly courageous while you're actually doing the scary shit.

Basically, people and their experiences. Fiction about the lives we rarely see. Essays about the lives we're still figuring out. Especially regarding my own life.

Because despite my tendency to disappear down historical rabbit holes and research one completely unnecessary detail for three hours, I've never really been interested in perfect heroes. I'm interested in human beings trying.

When I'm not writing, I'm usually gaming, listening to music, drinking coffee, spending time with my dog, researching something nobody asked me to research, or finding increasingly elaborate excuses to pretend I'm Spider-Man. There is also a decent chance I am creating something I absolutely did not need another project for. Most of them (all of them) need caffeine.

If you've found your way here because you like stories about identity, messy humanity, courage, weird history, becoming yourself, or figuring life out while pretending you definitely know what you're doing...

Welcome. I think you'll fit in just fine.

(If you want the professional (and boring) Bio, you can go here.)