My name's Brad, and in addition to being the author of the novel Because of Jenny, I'm a 28-year-old sparkling conversationalist and well-mannered eater with a peculiar affection for cat shirts. I graduated from West Point in 2014 and served in the Army, and in 2017 I moved to Los Angeles to attend grad school at the University of Southern California, where I recently received my master’s degree from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Alas, I don't have any writing awards or accolades to mention, and so I hope my writing will speak for itself. I'm currently working on my second novel, On Finite Lane, which focuses on today's cultural polarization and the power of forgiveness. I'm originally from New Baltimore, Michigan, but currently reside in downtown Los Angeles where I maintain an undying desire to domesticate a raccoon, and I serve as the proud foster-father of the 2 stray cats living behind my apartment, Pizza Roll and Kevin. About the submission: I'm a big believer in the power of stories, and this is a fiction piece I wrote with the hope of making a difference in the way people who identify as LGBTQIA+ are perceived and treated. Nothing so effortlessly opens a person’s eyes quite like stories. The world as we see it often grows dull in our perceptions, but seen from another’s vantage, it can still take our breath away. When I write, I do so with the ultimate goal of helping my readers more easily empathize with people whose experiences they’ve never shared, giving them the opportunity to immerse themselves in the psyches of the marginalized.