Monique Rardin Richardson is a Northern California-based author and poet whose work centers on the transformative power of resilience. After a career in the medical field, Monique has returned to her creative roots, becoming a resonant voice for the complexities of the human heart.
Her prose books include the award winning memoir, When Then Became Now, romance novel Our Last Hello, and the novellas Despina the Anti-Cupid and The Unlikely Dreamcatcher. Monique’s poems are published in several anthologies, including Havik’s Journal of Arts and Literature, Viewless Wings, Wingless Dreamer, and Colossus. They also appear in her first poetry collection, Pieces of Me.
Another of her passions led her to become an accomplished photographer whose work has been exhibited at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
In The Evolution of My Smile, she explores the linear journey of shadow and light, proving that healing isn’t a sequence to finish, but a circle to embrace. It is a collection for anyone who has ever felt broken in the dark, only to find that their light was simply waiting for the shadow to catch up. Because true evolution isn’t about leaving the sadness behind. It’s about learning how all emotions can finally live together.
If you’d like to learn more, you can find her at:
moniquerardinrichardson.com
Paperback: 94 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (August 6, 2026)