I want you to know who’s behind these books before I start asking for space on your shelf. I’m Romie The Writer. Cincinnati raised me, and PaperCuts Publishing is where I’m putting the work I intend to leave behind.
When I write about a family, I care about what happens after the argument. Who still has to pick up the child? Who has to answer the phone? Who has to sit across from somebody they love while knowing what that person did? A decision can happen in a few seconds. Living with it takes longer. That is where a lot of my stories live.
I write urban fiction because I know there are readers who recognize those pressures. They know a mother can love her son and still miss what’s happening right in front of her. They know two people can come out of the same household with completely different accounts of what that household was. They know a person can want to change and still have work to do before anybody believes it.
Those readers deserve characters with something going on underneath the next move. A woman needs a life beyond what she means to a man. A man needs more than a reputation. A teenager needs reasons for the decisions an adult might dismiss as stupidity. I want the people in my books to have enough room to make you understand them, get mad at them, and keep turning the page.
Cincinnati belongs in that work. It is where my understanding comes from. The relationships, the pride, the way people carry a family name, and the distance between where somebody started and where they are trying to go all matter to me. Putting the city on the page means paying attention to the people inside it.
Bruzin’s starts with two sons whose mothers are sisters. Polo and Amir share a father, a bloodline, and family history neither one created. Bruzin’s 2 follows Amir into Lebanon Correctional, where the family’s problems keep reaching him. The YN’S turns toward a mother finding an unexpected future in music while her teenage son starts slipping away. Each book asks something of the people inside it.
PaperCuts Publishing gives me a place to build that catalog with responsibility attached to my own name. The cover has to represent the story. The description has to help you choose. When you open the book, the writing has to give you a reason to stay. When something needs more work, it is my job to do that work.
I also want a relationship with readers that lasts beyond a single post. You should be able to find the books, ask a question, leave an honest review, and hear from me when I have news worth sharing. If you didn’t like something, you can say that. I learn more from an honest reader than I do from being told what somebody thinks I want to hear.
That is who I’m building this for: readers who want people they can recognize, choices they can argue about, and a story that respects the time they gave it. Take a look at the catalog. Pick the book that speaks to you. When you finish, I want to know who stayed on your mind.