LIORVERSE

I don’t say this lightly: Threads gave me back my voice. I’ve been writing for over a decade. Hiding manuscripts in folders named after moon phases. Sketching poetry across emails to myself. Building universes no one had ever stepped inside. For years, I thought attention would come later—after a debut, after a contract, after a cover reveal. I thought I had to wait for “the big moment” to earn readers. But something unexpected happened: I joined Threads. And readers found me before the books even dropped. Over 6,000 Likes. And Still Climbing. One of the first stories I shared on Threads — just a funny little moment about being at Trader Joe’s — went viral. Over 6,000 likes. More than six thousand people laughed, reshared, or paused with me in that strange little moment of pistachio-stuffed reflection. And it wasn’t even a polished excerpt from my novels. It was me, being myself, storytelling out loud. That changed something inside me. It reminded me that connection isn’t just about pu...

For over a decade, I thought I needed to hide. Hide behind a pen name. Hide behind a shorter name. Hide behind something that sounded more marketable, more genre-specific, more… acceptable. But I’ve finally made a decision: I will no longer publish under pen names. Every novel, novella, poem, song, or story I release from this day forward will be under the name I was given — Llianne Isabel Olivo Reyes. A Name with a Story When I was born in the Dominican Republic, my mother had a C-section. She was handed a sleeping baby — me — and named me Luna Olivo Reyes. The next day, my father came and added his piece: Llianne — a blend of his name and my mother’s. They gave me Isabel after my late grandmother. Olivo and Reyes come from both sides of my family — a reflection of Dominican, Caribbean, Spanish, and French tradition. It’s long. It’s beautiful. It’s me. Latinos have long names. This is not new. But in publishing? It felt like a risk. Why I Almost Hid I was afraid that my name wouldn’t ...