Jocelyn Paige Kelly
Bio
Jocelyn Paige Kelly is a YA author by day and an astrologer by night—a complex woman who juggles many roles with creativity and resilience.
Stories (15)
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A Knock at the Door
It’s the sound I’ve been waiting for, but not tonight. The knock is too soft to be a package, too deliberate to be the wind. I freeze halfway between the couch and the kitchen, my dialysis machine humming in the background like a restless ghost. It’s always running, even when I’m not connected to it — the sound fills the apartment like breath, like proof I’m still here.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly3 months ago in Fiction
When Halloween Meets Real Life: Writing Tricks, Treats, and Trouble Breathing
Halloween in YA stories usually means costumes, candy, and just the right amount of spooky chaos. Haunted houses, crushes at parties, the thrill of a night when the rules loosen just enough to let magic slip through. But what happens when real life—illness, family struggles, and all the complications we don’t talk about—shows up on a night that’s supposed to be carefree?
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in Writers
The Call That Split Me
At 2:13 a.m., the phone rings. In one world, Lily wakes instantly. The apartment is so quiet she can hear the refrigerator switch off. A soft weight lifts from the bend of her knees—Hekate, her black cat, standing, amber eyes lit like two streetlamps in fog. Lily answers on the second ring, voice rehearsed for years of maybe-tonight. A woman says Lily’s full name and the words she’s memorized and avoided like a superstition: We have a kidney for you.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in Fiction
What Queer Love Looks Like in the Shadow of Illness
When we think about YA romance, certain images come to mind: meet-cutes in the hallway, first kisses under the stars, dramatic confessions that end with happily-ever-after music swelling in the background. But love—especially queer love—doesn’t always look like that. And when illness enters the story, it almost never does.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in Writers
Stay Afloat:
Young adult fiction has always been about transformation. From first loves to magical quests, from high school drama to dystopian battles, YA stories are filled with characters navigating change. But one theme often gets overlooked: resilience. Not the flashy, heroic kind where someone defeats a villain or saves the world, but the quiet, everyday resilience it takes just to keep going when life is heavy.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in Writers
Notes From the Dialysis Chair, Part 1
Three times a week, four hours at a time—that’s how I measure my life these days. Dialysis isn’t just a treatment, it’s a schedule that swallows you whole. You plan your days around it. You ration your energy because the machine takes what little you have left. And yet, this chair has become a kind of stage, a strange place where time feels both endless and borrowed.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in Fiction
Living With Deadlines
We usually think of deadlines as something tied to work: the report due Friday, the project launch next month, the emails piling up in our inbox. But there’s another kind of deadline we don’t often acknowledge—the one that comes with being human. The truth is, we’re all living with the ultimate deadline: mortality.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in Writers
What Would You Do If You Had More Time?
We’ve all said it: “If only I had more time.” More time to chase dreams, to finish projects, to tell the people we love how much they mean to us. Time feels like the one resource we can never control—and the one we always wish we had more of.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in BookClub
The Problem With “Strong Female Characters”
For years, pop culture has celebrated the rise of the “strong female character”—the action-hero archetype who is independent, witty, tough, and often emotionally closed off. While these characters were a necessary reaction to decades of one-dimensional damsels in distress, they’ve created a new limitation: women who don’t fit this narrow mold often get overlooked, undervalued, or erased.
By Jocelyn Paige Kelly4 months ago in BookClub
