Aging Up: Why I'm Rebuilding Briar Glen for Adults
For a long time, I was waiting for someone to tell me I was allowed to be an author.
It’s a funny thing, permission. When you grow up in a high-control religious environment, the kind where adult men evaluate your eye contact and posture in front of a congregation when you’re nine years old, you get very good at waiting for the "Counsel Point" to be checked off. You learn to smile, you learn to perform, and you learn to wait for the green light from the people at the top of the hierarchy.
I carried that shit into my writing life. I spent years tinkering with Briar Glen as a Middle Grade mystery. I thought, This is safe. This is where stories for kids live. I can follow the rules here.
But Charli Prescott was tired of being safe. And frankly, so was I.
The Permission Trap
When I was the "Chick-fil-A girl" in Waynesville, I was the queen of performance. I could hand you a spicy chicken sandwich with a smile that suggested I didn't have a single dark thought in my head. But underneath the polyester and the "My Pleasure," I was navigating a world of rigid expectations and suppressed identity.
Publishing felt like that for a while. I thought the book publishing process required me to fit into a specific box. I looked at the traditional gatekeepers and thought, If I can just make this Middle Grade mystery 'clean' enough, or 'commercial' enough, someone will finally tell me I’m a real writer.
Then I published Good Slave.
Writing that memoir, telling the truth about faith, control, and the "fucking girdles" of my youth, broke the seal. Once you’ve told the world your most uncomfortable truths, writing a "safe" story for ten-year-olds starts to feel like wearing shoes engineered by Satan. It doesn’t fit. It pinches.
I realized I didn't need a traditional publisher to hand me a golden ticket. I needed to stop waiting for permission and start writing the book I actually wanted to read.
Why Charli Prescott Had to Grow Up
In the original version of Briar Glen, Charli Prescott was in elementary school solving mysteries within the boundaries of her 10-year old brain. It was cute. It was fine.
But as I looked at the landscape of Waynesville and the rugged, complicated beauty of Appalachia, I realized I was leaving the best parts of the story on the cutting room floor because they weren't "age-appropriate."
The Appalachia I know isn't just a backdrop for a scavenger hunt. It’s a place of deep generational trauma, hidden corruption, and moral ambiguity. It’s a place where people do bad things for what they think are good reasons.
To tell that story, Charli had to age up. She’s 21 now.
At 21, Charli has agency. She has baggage. She has the ability to walk into a dive bar or a courthouse and see the rot underneath the surface. She’s no longer looking at the world through the lens of childhood wonder; she’s looking at it with the skeptical eye of someone who knows that the people in charge are usually full of shit.
Aging her up changed the stakes. We aren't looking for a missing library book anymore. We’re looking for the truth behind a cold disappearance that the town has spent two decades trying to forget.
The Reality of the Independent Publishing Process
Pivoting from Middle Grade to Adult Mystery meant I had to rethink my entire book marketing strategy.
In the world of Middle Grade, you’re marketing to librarians, teachers, and parents. In Adult Mystery, you’re marketing to people who want grit, atmosphere, and a protagonist who isn't afraid to say "fuck" when the situation calls for it.
I’ve decided to take the independent publishing route for Briar Glen, and I’m doing it through my own company, Lou Dog Studio.
Why? Because I’m done with the sanitization.
Traditional publishing is obsessed with "safe" writing. They want to know where a book fits on a shelf before they’ve even read the first chapter. But I’ve learned that safe writing is usually boring. It lacks the teeth that make a story stay with you.
By handling the self-publishing services myself, working with editors who understand the Appalachian voice and designers who don't want to put a generic "girl in a red coat" on the cover, I can keep the soul of the story intact.
Rebuilding the World of Briar Glen
Rebuilding a series for adults isn't just about adding profanity and making the crimes more violent. It’s about psychological depth.
In the adult version of Briar Glen, the setting itself is a character. The mountains aren't just pretty; they’re claustrophobic. The small-town charm is a thin veneer over a history of complicity.
I’m focusing on what I call "Appalachian Noir." It’s about the silence that follows a crime. It’s about the way a community protects its own, even when "its own" are monsters.
Here is what the book publishing process looks like for me right now:
Deconstruction: Taking the MG plot beats and asking, "How does this hurt more if the characters are adults?"
The Stakes: Moving from "Who did it?" to "Why did everyone allow it to happen?"
The Voice: Leaning into the intelligent, direct, and emotionally honest tone that I’ve spent the last few years cultivating.
If you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of how this works, I wrote an ultimate guide to how to publish a book in 2026 that covers everything from metadata to distribution strategies. It’s the roadmap I’m using to bring Charli Prescott to life.
Lou Dog Studio: Authentic, Creative, Fearless
I named my studio after my dog, Lou, but the name has come to represent something bigger. It’s about a specific kind of creative freedom.
For a long time, I lived in a world of "No."
No, you can't wear that.
No, you can't say that.
No, you aren't allowed to think for yourself.
Lou Dog Studio is my "Yes."
Building this business publicly is part of the process. I want people to see the messy middle. I want other writers to see that you can pivot, you can change your mind, and you can rebuild your "safe" little story into something that actually has a heartbeat.
We’re currently working on the visual identity for the Briar Glen series, and let me tell you, it is a far cry from the primary colors of Middle Grade. We’re going for something clinical, sophisticated, and haunting.
The Landing
I recently celebrated my three-year sobriety anniversary. Sobriety, much like writing, is about facing the truth without the insulation of a buffer.
When I was drinking, everything was blurry. When I was writing Middle Grade, everything was "safe."
Now, everything is sharp.
Aging up Briar Glen isn't just a business decision or a market pivot—it’s an act of honesty. It’s me admitting that I’m not a "safe" writer, and I’m not interested in telling "safe" stories.
Charli Prescott is 21. She’s back in the mountains. She’s angry, she’s smart, and she’s looking for the truth.
And for the first time in my life, I didn't ask anyone if that was okay.
