The Short Story
I’m a Latina writer with an MA in Leadership Studies, which I use in my corporate HR job and in my writing of silly bureaucratic magical agencies. I am also a published bookish artist that enjoys the book world from multiple lenses. I live in St. Louis with my husband, our pets, and my overstuffed bookshelves.
Literary Rep: Bibi Lewis
For Publisher or PR Inquiries, please email Hello@aliciambart.com. Please do not submit commission inquiries through this email.
The Long Story
I have three completely different professional personas. By day, I work in Corporate HR in Organizational Effectiveness; by night, I paint book characters and geek out for pay. And then somehow also by night I wrote a book?
How did I end up with such differing careers?
My business-patriarchy-stomping ambitions and free-spirited-artist-bookworm personalities always seemed to be at odds with each other. For college, I had the choice to get my business degree at a top university or go to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago – as I got into both. At 18, I chose the business route, and I have NO regrets. I stayed through my master’s degree in leadership and am passionate about what I do in HR.
Art has always been my hobby. However, I didn’t take kindly to my high school art teacher criticizing my whimsical choice of subject matter, so I tended to rebuff *Art Authority*, and thus decided a structured art university was not necessarily the right fit for me. Don’t worry; I made my extra cash to buy novels in college by painting royal pet portraits, so the whimsy never left me.
Flash forward to 2020/2021. I got COVID (sad trumpet noises). I got it bad and am one of the countless COVID Long-Haulers. For about four months after my illness, I was bedridden for 80-90% of the day. So other than working my regular job from my laptop in bed, the only thing I wanted to do was read. So I read and read and read. And then, I decided that I had really strong images of each character in my head, so as I got my energy back slowly, I started sketching. I filled up notebooks of Sarah J Maas’s characters and dipped my toes into drawing Jennifer L Armentrout’s character portraits, Jay Kristoff’s heroes, and more. And from those, I got my first bookish art commission. I bought an iPad, taught myself digital art on the fly, and have had a whirlwind time ever since.
And on December 18, 2024, I made a choice to become even busier! I decided I was going to write a book. Apparently I’ve always wanted to, according to numerous friends and family members, but had sort of buried that dream under a pile of imposter syndrome. Until one day (Dec 18) while on one of our little mental health walks, my husband, Shayne, and I started talking about what jobs we would have if we lived in a fantasy world.
I joked around and said “I’d probably still be stuck in an email job, even in a magical world.”
And then? Then the entire idea of a paranormal rom com book flooded right out of me. And here I am, full manuscript written, agent secured, writer dream things *happening*.