Welcome to the Playground
Ciao Bellissima!
Welcome to my playground!
Above all, I want this to be a safe space where everyone can be themselves, including me. So, let’s get to know each other!
My name is Gwendylan, AKA Dylan Quinn. Truth be told, had you met me in January, you would’ve met a different person. Because legally, I was…
On February 10th, I went to court to have my name legally changed. For the first time in my life, I took control of it. I can’t think of anything more symbolic or freeing than choosing your own name. It helped me put my traumatic past behind me and gave me permission to look forward to the future.
However, ten years ago is when this story begins. While sitting behind a teacher’s desk in a small high school in Missouri, while my students worked on their English or Journalism projects, and I worked on mine, which was a story that has since become the love story of my new life.
I’d spent many years in an abusive relationship, and part of me no longer believed in love. I just wanted to get out of it with my heart intact. So I started writing to escape my life and live one in which I was in control…the goddess of my own universe.
That’s the beauty of being an author.
To my surprise, every moment spent outside my fictional world made me sad. All I wanted was to escape back to my universe where I could create and destroy whatever the hell I wanted. Writing gave me a voice. Gave me the will I so desperately needed to take back control of my life.
So I wrote. And I pitched. Even went to a conference where I fortuitously met the publisher at Entangled, who also happened to publish and edit one of the books that got me back into reading – Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series – inspiring me to do even bigger things in publishing… some day.
After pitching the story to Entangled and several other publishers, in true impatient fashion, I said the hell with it and self-published my first full novel, Gemini – an Urban Fantasy Romance Retelling – in 2016.
Since then, I’ve published many novels, novellas and short stories, some of which you may have (or hopefully will) purchased or received FOR FREE just for signing up for my newsletter! ;-D
Back to 2016… out of the blue, I received a message from a guy I went to high school with years earlier, who I actually dated for a week in the eighties, who wanted to read my book. So…I sent it to him. He read it, connected with Cade, and the rest they say is history.
We’ve been together since late 2016, and we got married in 2017. It has since been confirmed that Daniel Cade Quinn is the love of my lives.
Gemini changed my life. I finally found who I am and where I belong, as well as my purpose on this earth:
Changing the world one love story at a time.
So that’s where I’ll leave you today… knowing second chance romances don’t only happen in love stories.
Until next time…
XO, Dylan