J. Q. TerMolen

J. Q. TerMolen was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the only child of a fiercely supportive mother. Left alone with his imagination, J.Q. learned early how to turn silence into stories and hardship into fuel. By the age of seven, he had survived meningitis, spinal taps, and the slow realization that he was not like other kids—and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

At fourteen, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Chemo, radiation, and a whole lot of pain taught him two things: (1) life is short, and (2) if you're going to be stuck in a hospital bed, you might as well make your mind a place worth escaping to. Laughter and dark humor became a lifeline to sanity.

Eventually, he traded hospital gowns for combat boots and served seven years in the military as an Infantry Sniper. There, he witnessed the kind of darkness that doesn’t go away when you turn the lights on. The kind that follows you home. Having lost brothers to silence and self-destruction, Jon turned again to the one thing that never betrayed him—writing.

His work is a catharsis, a bloodletting of grief and imagination. I Am Your Friend is both a story and an exorcism—a dark whisper of healing wrapped in narrative form. He writes to transform pain into something beautiful, strange, and maybe a little dangerous.

When he’s not world-building or writing, J.Q. can usually be found in the gym, wandering through the woods with his dogs, or overanalyzing the emotional damage of fictional characters with his darling partner in life and love.