My
Story

Cultural commentator, #1 Best-Selling author, Mom and LGBTQIA advocate

I am Monika.

​

By the age of five, I knew I was different from other little girls. I liked different things and I felt different.

As a teenager, I "came out" at a time when being gay was something you kept hidden because it was unacceptable. My father disowned me. My mother didn't understand who I was. I found kinship and love within the gay community, particularly among gay men and drag queens. They helped me to navigate my feelings and the world. They helped me to survive.

After fulfilling my heart's desire to become a mother, I was still searching for love and found it in all the wrong places: unattainable women who were "straight" and others who lived half lives, afraid of what the world would say. When I finally found my happy ending, it turned into a nightmare from which I couldn't wake. After enduring and recovering from a stroke, I was house-bound and depressed. I lost my independence; I couldn't work. One day I picked up a pen and started journaling. I wrote feverishly releasing everything that had been burdening my heart.

Then, I had a painful divorce and couldn't find my path. So, I continued to write. Writing awakened something inside me; it ignited a spark that I didn't know existed. Creating the character Nikki Blue, my protagonist, was freeing. I could channel my feelings of anguish, joy and triumph. I would reinvent myself! I could be authentically me.

Those difficult periods birthed my career as an author. Pretty Boy Blue was my first novel. Pretty because everyone said that I was "too pretty to be like that." Boy because although I love being a woman, I've always felt like a cocky boy on the inside. Blue represents my sadness from the bullying that I endured.

Three novels later, I am an LGBTQIA  advocate, grandmother and cultural commentator. I have authored columns and a blog, hosted radio segments and book signings. And I have only begun to find my purpose. Being my authentic self.