Stephanie Chiedo

Dear ex, I understand that I can’t send this directly to you because you blocked me completely after I sent your printed obituary to your poor-poor parents in Nebraska. So, that is why I decided to play mailman, by sending it to your new girl and hoping she passes it on to you with a hint of awkwardness. Well, I walk down your street with precise caution now. Just hoping that I won’t find your face in the crowd. What then would I say or do? Would I smile or grin? apologize or greet? ‘Oh, good afternoon…I - I am so sorry, I never thought I’d see you here!’ My god, even I know that sounds crazy. But then what if you’re with her? I know. I would probably make a very silly joke, and maybe – hopefully, only I wouldn’t laugh at my joke. Maybe you and that silly girl could just make it less awkward by laughing too. But then, how should I be okay with any of this? She literally stole you from me using a breakfast sandwich. How cheap can you be? If you’d told me that you were that che...

  ARTIST STATEMENT   I am a writer who is driven by a passion for storytelling that evokes a sense of reflective thinking and challenges perceptions. My name is Stephanie A. Chiedo, also known as Stephanie Decady. I would say that I have embarked on a quest to explore the vivid forms of human imagination and societal reflection through my writing. I draw inspiration from diverse cultures and perspectives, crafting them into narratives that resonate with readers on a global scale. I specialize in dystopian fiction, mental health fiction, sci-fi, and psychological thrillers because these genres allow me to explore the complexities of societal norms and the structures which uphold them. One of my greatest aspirations as a writer is for my books to be as "flexible" as possible. By this, I mean that I strive to create narratives that are not only engaging and entertaining but also capable of igniting meaningful and resourceful conversations, where the characters and thei...

  1989.   Beneath the towering mahoganies of an isolated home, sixteen-year-old Thuli writes a final letter to her father, who will never read it. After being cajoled into a so-called gifted institution for disturbed youths, she is recruited into the Obedient Program, an underground experiment that trains carefully selected patients to infiltrate lives beyond the institution's walls. Their purpose is chillingly simple: manipulate ordinary people until they begin to question their own sanity... and willingly surrender themselves. But while Thuli learns how to dismantle other minds, someone is quietly dismantling hers. As fragmented memories resurface, a supposedly dead mother reappears under different names, psychiatrists become patients, patients become predators, and every truth begins collapsing into another lie. The deeper Thuli searches for her past, the more she realizes that she may not be hunting a monster. She may have been raised by one. A haunting literary psychologi...

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