Since sharing my plans to publish Practically Human, I’ve been asked a pretty simple question:

Why did you write this book?

There were a few other comments mixed in—some supportive, some… let’s just say not entirely convinced—but I’ll stick with the question.

The idea started more than ten years ago. I had just seen yet another “killer doll” movie. You know the kind—Child’s Play, Annabelle, M3GAN. I don’t even remember which one it was. But I do remember being annoyed.

Now, to be fair, I say that as someone who will absolutely see every one of those movies the minute it comes out. I can’t resist. But still… the premise always bugs me.

I’ve spent over thirty years as a professional doll designer, and my experience with dolls—and the people who collect them—has been completely different from what you see in those films. Strangely, I don’t know of a single case where a doll has come to life and terrorized a household.

What I have seen is creativity, friendship, and community. I’ve met artists who use dolls as a serious creative outlet, people who found comfort in them during difficult times, and families who built traditions around collecting. More than anything, I’ve seen how something as simple as a doll can connect people in surprisingly meaningful ways.

So I started wondering what might happen if someone told a different kind of doll story—one where the doll wasn’t something creepy, but something you could actually care about.

And since nobody else seemed to be jumping at the idea, I thought maybe I should give it a shot.

At the time, I definitely didn’t think of myself as a writer. But I sat down and started anyway.

It was slow going. What I thought might take a year turned into six. Eventually, though, I finished a manuscript. And when I did, I had one very clear, slightly terrifying thought:

Now what?

Less than two weeks later, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw an ad that basically said: “Have a finished manuscript and no idea what to do next? Talk to me.”

That felt uncomfortably specific.

So I reached out. That’s how I met Stacy, who became my writing coach. She read the manuscript and, after a thoughtful—but very honest—conversation, told me something I wasn’t exactly hoping to hear:

She liked the idea, but I needed to start over. From page one.

Not exactly the reaction you dream about after spending six years writing a book.

But by that point, something had changed. The story—and the characters—had started to matter to me in a way they hadn’t at the beginning. I realized I didn’t just want to say I’d written a book. I wanted it to be good.

The rewrite took about a year. After that, we spent another two years shaping the story, tightening it, and figuring out what it really wanted to be.

Looking back, Practically Human started because I was tired of seeing dolls treated as creepy or dangerous.

Somewhere along the way, though, the book became about more than a kinder kind of doll story. It became a story about connection, empathy, family, and all the messy ways we learn to care about each other.

And honestly? I just wanted to see if I could pull it off.