Moji
Author
Moji is a mess! Although she is very insecure and unsure about herself, she is sure about the people in her life. Even when she can’t see the good parts of herself, she always sees the good in other people. More than anything, she wants to be different than who she is now and hopes that someday she can do good in the world by helping others see themselves the way she sees them.
This book was meant to be letters to her loved ones but it slowly became letters to herself in desperation for change for something more. It is Moji’s hope that people will walk away from reading this book by seeing themselves differently, just as she has learned to see herself differently. She hopes that their feelings of self-loathing will transform into feelings of self-love by seeing someone else go through those same struggles.
Moji hasn’t done much with her life – yet – but there is still much to be done. Her community is small, but it is completely filled with love and acceptance. Perhaps loving others despite not knowing how to love them is her great achievement.
Bethany
Illustrator
I am passionate about my work. I often feel like I am in a world where art is a phase or underappreciated – that isn’t a “real” job. I can only accurately describe it as: art is my life. Art has been my coping mechanism. It has been my escape and my therapy at the same time. It has been how I create worlds, how I bond with others by showing them my world and, in turn, exploring theirs. That is what my art means to me. My feelings can only go so far with words. Art captures the rest.
As an artist I am ambitious, and probably stubborn. My passion sometimes turns into unnecessary aggression now and then because I am so desperate for people to see things from a perspective that’s at risk for being lost.
In summer 2025, I went to the Immersive Van Gogh Experience in Tennessee. That was maybe the only time in my life where I felt such a – almost spiritual in a way – feeling of “I am Home” but also “this is what the inside of my head looks like”. It was life-changing to feel like I could converse with another artist that knows what it’s like to be mentally ill, who knows what it’s like to have the world doubt you but be so passionate that you keep drawing anyway.
Sometimes it kind of feels like when people don’t see you, a piece of paper or a canvas does, because they aren’t asking you to be anything but relentlessly yourself. So, when I went to that Van Gogh experience, it was nothing short of life-changing. It made me look back and see that there are people in this world who not only love art as I do but maybe someone else felt at home there. In turn, because of art, and because of an artist, I am not alone.
I have never really had a goal of where I want to go with art, except wherever the art takes me. Wherever the people are who need my art, that is where I will be.
