J. T.

I grew up exploring the Pacific Northwest and later attended the University of Oregon. I graduated from U.S. Army combat medic training on September 11, 2001, the same morning the Twin Towers fell. After my service, I moved to Miami, where I tended bar, built a residential cleaning business, and learned that sometimes the most meaningful connections happen in the most unexpected places.

Music and writing have always been my anchors. I've sung with gay men's choruses in five cities across the country, finding community and voice in spaces where both were freely given.

I write because silence kills, whether it's the silence around addiction, the silence forced on LGBTQ+ people, or the silence that grief demands before we're ready to speak. My work explores love in its most complicated forms: messy, imperfect, and sometimes impossible to sustain when systems fail the people caught within them.

I've lost my brother Michael to an overdose. My uncle Robert. My partner Dustin, who was brilliant, capable, and deeply loved. He wasn't someone who needed saving, but someone the system abandoned. Each loss taught me how profoundly our institutions fail people struggling with addiction, and how love, even when it can't prevent tragedy, still carries meaning and weight.

First, Do No Harm is my sixth book and second memoir. It tells the story of my relationship with Dustin, a relationship built on equality, joy, and partnership, complicated by opioid addiction and the impossible choices we face when loving someone navigating that reality. The book centers queer love and the human cost of systems that criminalize families instead of supporting them.

My previous works include My Heart's Tattoo (LGBTQ+ fiction), the Guardians of Lumina fantasy trilogy, The Cajun Curse (Southern Gothic horror), and Hard to Believe (contemporary romance). I publish through J.A.W. Press, my independent publishing imprint.

I write to honor the people I've lost, to advocate for harm reduction and genuine support systems, and to create space for honest conversations about addiction, mental health, grief, and what it means to survive loving someone the world decided wasn't worth saving.

I live in Portland, Oregon, with my dog, Hunny. My family, especially my sisters and my grandmother, remains my foundation and source of strength.