If you'd have sat me down when I was thirteen and given me a list of 500 professions to choose from, including writer, I would have picked writer dead last.

In those days, I'd have happily weeded my family's garden before writing one paragraph. I would have even preferred one of my dad's three-hour lectures on things any two-year old would know: IN THE WORLD, YOU WILL FIND TWO KINDS OF THINGS: LIVING AND NON-LIVING THINGS. AMONG THE LIVING THINGS YOU WILL FIND CREATURES OF THE AIR, CREATURES OF THE LAND, AND CREATURES OF THE WATER. AMONG THE CREATURES OF THE AIR...argh!

I got turned on to writing when I was sixteen, after a drunk driver killed my best friend, my older brother Tewolde. American culture encourages you to share your feelings after a loved one dies, but my Ethiopian/Eritrean culture insists that you bury the feelings with the person. My family never talked about my brother. We donated all his clothes immediately. We even hid his pictures.

I had no choice: release my feelings or EXPLODE. So I began journaling for hours at a time. Prose, poetry, rap, incomprehensible streams of consciousness, and failed attempts at drawings quickly formed a small mountain of notebooks. You couldn't have gotten me to admit it-no self-respecting teenage guy would ever be caught with a diary, right? But before long, I secretly began to enjoy writing.

During college, I started to perform in poetry readings, and I even created a website that showcased my best poems. (Find it if you can!)

I majored in American History and learned how to write biographies, political narratives, analyses and other types of history. The more I learned about American history, the more I pondered my own history, and the history of all black refugees in America.

Before long, I realized that I had always read books with characters named Tom, Jan, or Gatsby. But I had never read about Hagos, Tsege, or Asgedom. My Eritrean and Ethiopian people were invisible in the American cultural landscape.

You know what it means if you're invisible? It means you're not important. You don't matter. That's why no one reads or writes about you. Writing Of Beetles and Angels was my way of proclaiming: MY PEOPLE MATTER, TOO! Our story can fuel just as much inspiration as George Washington's or Joan of Arc's.

Now that I'm almost done with my second book-a success guide for teenagers-I can't wait to get cranking on my science fiction trilogy, The Hunt for the Green Serpent Man. Thank God my family no longer gardens!