What are you most proud of in your life?
Honestly, that I have never given up. I have struggled throughout my life with some very difficult times, as anyone has, and as a young man it truly hit me hard. I grew up with a mostly absentee father, so my grandfather was my rock. As a man who took care of his own family from the age of 14 and carried the Mathews name across multiple states he was a source of strength for me. He passed when I was 12 and I was completely lost. I struggled for years to find my place, my heart, but it was always beyond me.
As many young people do, I began seeing the world as something not to survive, but to escape from. I considered everything from leaving my home to live in the mountains like a pioneer, all the way up to taking my own life. As a high schooler in a household with an over-worked single parent I fell hard. There was a day I literally held a knife to my throat. That was when it hit me. A story idea. I became so distracted by this impossibly intense idea I put the weapon down and started writing.
I have always loved reading and had started writing a few stories in the past, but this one was different. It opened the floodgates for me. The passion for writing was awakened that day, with ideas hitting me left and right. God showed me the light of my own future when I was barely 16 years old and it gave me the strength to keep moving forward. I have now published 8 books and have countless others started or forming in my head, with no plans to stop writing. I have shared my story before, but I will do so again and again until I know others have found their reason for staying alive. It is not worth losing the good times to give in to the bad.
Damean Mathews 