Olivia J Creates

06/08/2026

the council is deciding your fate 👁️👄👁️ Happy Monday y’all🤣

05/15/2026

I’ve always made it a reading goal of mine to read more indie books every year. That’s one of the reasons .kristina and I created July’s .author.readathon! Swipe for some new-release indie reads I’m excited for! From kickass anime-inspired fantasy to cozy romantasy to steampunk Westerns, I’m here for all of the uniqueness that indie books have to offer!
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
🏷️

04/30/2026

Been a minute since I’ve done a TBR stack📚✨
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
🌊The 5th Wave: A favorite as a teen. An underrated classic. I have plans to reread the whole trilogy!
🦴Road of Bones: A fantasy book I got for Christmas that I still need to read! Trying to clear my shelves of unread books before I let myself buy more🤣
🐉A Natural History of Dragons: Another Christmas gift. This one seems out of my normal depth/range but I’m willing to give it a try.
🧑‍💻The Business of Being a Writer: Our second-quarter writer’s book club pick!
⚗️Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 25-27: I actually finished the manga yesterday. Oops. Does it count that I still have to finish the anime?🤣
•🏷️•

04/28/2026

04/18/2026

Meet author Olivia J Creates at the Kenosha Book Festival 2026 - Chapter One on April 26th!

Olivia J. Bennett is the award-winning and genre-bending author of contemporary, fantasy, and horror. Her most significant work is Casually Homicidal, a YA road trip thriller. In 2018, her flash fiction “Clutching Roses” was awarded a National Gold Medal, and her debut novel A Cactus In the Valley won a Midwest Regional Gold Key, both from Scholastic Art & Writing. Her creative nonfiction and short stories have been published in literary journals and anthologies like Euphemism, Outrageous Fortune, Many Times, Many Ways, and Writing Out Our Twenties. When not creating, Olivia is most likely baking cookies, binge-watching Naruto or Lost with her partner, or cuddling her two cats. She can be found somewhere between the corn and the big blue sky of Illinois.

See you at Studio Moonfall, 5031 7th Avenue, from 10am to 3pm for the April 26th Kenosha Book Festival!

04/15/2026

It’s thunderstorming right now, but yesterday Bagheera and I got to enjoy the nice weather. Swipe for some pics of her being a goofball💞 In terms of writing, I finished the second draft of The Strength of the Shield last week, and I’ve been itching for something new to work on. But at the same time, I’ve got lots of projects moving and shuffling in the background at the same time. More on that later, maybe. Sometimes I think I’m too ambitious, always looking for the next project or activity or personal achievement. This drive is what has made me so creatively successful, but it can also be my worst enemy when circumstances prevent more achievement. March was pretty terrible and gave me some big setbacks. It’s like my body and brain forgets how to rest and relax, and trying to retrain that in myself is like teaching a cat how to do tricks: not impossible, but certainly harder than trying to teach a dog. Anyway, the pet metaphors are getting out of hand. If you read this far, I hope you take care of yourself🫶

04/04/2026

Life is terrible and weird and short, but art and words are forever. So is good food. How Any Good Recipe Starts: A Braided Essay on Death & Cooking up on Substack now.

03/27/2026

Quarter 1 Best Reads🌟📚🧡
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Writing Down the Bones and Beartown were rereads and both were worth it! The Dead Weight and Of Blood & Stone are indie reads that blew my expectations out of the water. The Shack made me cry at multiple points, and I’ve thoroughly been enjoying the Fullmetal Alchemist manga! Of course I couldn’t hold all of the volumes I rated 5 stars, so here’s just one.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Comment down below your favorite read of 2025 so far!

02/28/2026

A selection of the antiwar literature on my shelves. Some you’ve heard of, some you probably haven’t. I hope you’ll discover something new, learn a little bit, and flex your empathy muscles! [Posted in direct response to this morning’s attacks on Iran by the US government and Israel.]

02/09/2026

Well, since I updated all my other pinned posts, my “About Me” one makes the best for last! Swipe to learn more about my books, what I write, and what makes me, me!♥️