Hey! I’m Billie with an I-E.
I started writing seriously at 14 after reading Interview with the Vampire. I didn’t understand all of it, but I remember thinking—I want to make writing that can devastate the way this devastated me.
I grew up in Illinois. I’ve lived in Texas. Now I’m back in California, which was home all along.
I’ve stood in front of rooms and read my work out loud. I’ve met people I never thought I’d meet. I’ve tried on different versions of myself to see which skin fit.
Somewhere in all of that, I fell into history, myth, and religion. Ancient Greek thought, especially. I keep coming back to the same question, no matter where I am: what does it mean?
I’m a gay man, which means I learned early that identity isn’t something you’re given cleanly. You piece it together. You revise it. You live inside it.
Most of what I write comes from that. From trying to understand something I didn’t fully grasp when it was happening.
This is me.
The rest is the story.