Interpreting for Voices Beyond the Veil

In November of 2025, I'd committed to a year of writing prompts suggested by different authors. I'd followed through until my editor returned two manuscripts. Then writing practice became editing and, well, it’s still writing practice, technically.

Elbows-deep in editor feedback, word doc edits, and printed edits, I started to reminisce about being at this stage for Train Gone and Mirrors Strike Back, and I wondered why I'd written and published memoir at all.

After much navel-gazing, it came to this: regardless of how well (or unwell) both memoirs were received, how explicit I was in them (and I was), they were a necessary shedding of skin. There was so much shit stuck inside, and to move forward with anything meaningful, I had to clear a path.

It took me twelve years to get the first book out and its sequel came tumbling after. I thought two books might be all I had in me. But when I'd purchased the ISBNs, I'd bought in bulk, so, I must’ve known there would be more—it just wouldn’t be memoir.

Another Space and Time

What I’m about to share I've shared before. It might sound crazy, and I’m okay with that.

Since the path within has mostly cleared…real, live people from other realms come to me. I don’t mean dead people channeled via Ouija Board. I mean people who are living and breathing on another plane have found me, introduced themselves, shared very personal things, and asked that I write for them.

Now, this doesn’t sound crazy to me or to other intuitive writers I know (I’ve never outlined, plotted, or planned anything I’ve written. Ever).

The first time folks from another realm appeared, I was a kid—seventh grade, I think? I’d written a novella in my Creative Writing class about a band of misfit boys always in trouble. Things they’d been through were nothing like what I’d seen in my sheltered, little J-Dub existence, but I knew specifics as if I’d been right there with them.

It happened again in college—an old man who’d died needed to be resurrected via pen and paper to reconnect with his wife; I remember my writing professor asking how I knew so much about...X,Y,Z...and I had no real answer to give him. It didn’t happen much after 9/11, which did a number on me. I stopped going to school, and, like many others, I numbed the pain and fear of that event for years.

Then, one summer day (seven years ago?), I thought I was losing my mind when it happened again. This gorgeous man who wasn’t fully human—a superpowered alien, maybe?—came to me and we time traveled to all of my secret, safe places; he gave me very specific hits about the Holocaust and WWII (these WWII hits weren’t my safe places, just so we’re clear). I worked with him for a while then shit got heavy and we took a break. I miss him. I think we’ll work together again, but not right now.

It’s No Accident

In order for these characters to approach me, my shit (my past, the memoirs) had to be cleared, and it needs to stay that way. My mystical friends can't traverse the roads in my brain if there are countless stop signs, detours, and city workers redirecting them to another location because that other location might very well lead them to their end. And that’s not fair.

The irony of being a sign language interpreter by day is not lost on me. Interpreting words, thoughts, feelings, body language, facial expressions…etc., translates seamlessly to that magical realm where characters seek me out.

I don’t get to control who appears—a black man, a white 60s housewife, a hybrid alien, an elderly oddities shop owner, a budding hypnotherapist. I hear and interpret a lot of shit I don’t have experience with. When it happens with my characters, I ask them out loud what comes next, what I need to know. They answer. This isn’t much different than interpreting on Earth and asking for clarification to ensure accuracy.

I don’t think any of this is by accident. I believe I was born to Deaf parents, I believe I have the job and life experience I that I do, so I can serve characters from another plane who call for their own kind of interpreting.

And I’m down because they teach me so much, share so much of themselves. They’ve become my very best friends—I'm closer to them than I am to anyone on this plane.

So, if I don’t get out much, it’s because I’m with them—loving every second of it.